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EDWARD  M>  NBAu_Ey 
BURLINGTON,  IOWA 


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MORGAN'S     ANCIENT     SOCIETY;    or,   Re- 

searches  on  the  Lines  of  Human  Progress  through 
Savagery  and  Barbarism  to  Civilization.  By  LEWIS 
II.  MORGAN,  LL.D.  8vo.  $4. 

SIR  HENRY  SUMNER  MAINE'S  WORKS: 
Ancient  Law:  Its  Connection  with  the  Early 
History  of  Society,  and  its  Relation  to  Modern  Ideas. 
By  HKNKY  SCMNKR  MAINK.  Member  of  the  Supreme 
Council  of  India,  and  Regius  Professor  of  the  Civil 
Law  in  tlie  University  of  Cambridge.  With  an  Intro- 
duction by  Theodore  W.  Dwight,  LL.D.  8vo. 
$3-5°- 

Lectures  on  the  Early  History  of  Institutions. 
A  Sequel  to  "Ancient  Law."  Svo.  $3.50. 

Village  Communities  in  the  East  and  West. 
Six  Lectuies  delivered  at  Oxford  :  to  which  are  added 
other  Lectures,  Addresses,  and  Essays.  Svo.  $3.50. 

E.  B.   TYLOR'S  WORKS: 

Primitive  Culture:  Researches  into  the  Develop- 
ment of  Mythology,  Philosophy,  Religion,  Art,  and 
Custom.  2  vols.  Svo.  $7.00. 

Researches  into  the  Early  History  of  Man- 
kind, and  the  Development  of  Civilization.  Svo. 
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PRIMITIVE    MANNERS 
AND    CUSTOMS 


JAMES    A.    FARRER 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY     HOLT    AND     COMPANY 

1879 


I 


INTRODUCTION. 

FROM  the  myths  characteristic  of  savage  tribes,  from 
their  beliefs,  their  proverbs,  their  political  and  social 
regulations,  it  is  here  sought  to  gain  some  general 
estimate  of  their  powers  of  intelligence  and  imagina- 
tion, their  moral  ideas,  and  their  religion ;  subjects 
naturally  of  much  interest  and  inevitably  of  some 
dispute.  For  the  reason  that  in  savagery  as  in  civi- 
lisation there  are  heights  and  depths,  with  more  of 
light  here,  more  of  darkness  there,  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible to  bring  the  whole  of  savage  life  into  focus  at 
once,  so  that  every  general  conclusion  can  only  be 
taken  as  true  within  limits.  The  field  to  be  studied 
is  also  so  large  and  diversified,  that  no  two  minds  can 
expect  to  derive  from  it  the  same  impressions,  nor  to 
attain  to  more  than  partial  truth  about  it.  But  since 
the  savage  can  never  hope  to  be  heard  in  court  him- 
self, it  is  only  fair  to  start  with  certain  considerations 


«  INTRODUCTION. 

which  he  would  be  entitled  to  urge,  and  which  deserve 
to  weigh  in  any  judgment  made  regarding  him. 

Statements  of  very  low  powers  of  numeration 
have  been  perhaps  too  hastily  taken  as  indicative  of 
a  low  state  of  intelligence  ;  for  not  only  have  simi- 
lar assertions  concerning  American  and  Tasmanian 
tribes  by  the  earliest  voyagers  proved  on  subsequent 
investigation  to  be  erroneous,  but  many  savages  have 
substitutes  for  our  arithmetic  which  serve  them  per- 
fectly well,  the  Loangese,  for  instance,  expressing 
numbers  in  narration  not  by  words  but  by  gestures  ; 
and  the  Koossa  Kaffirs— very  few  of  whom  are  said  to 
be  able  to  count  above  ten — possessing  the  peculiar 
faculty  of  detecting  almost  at  a  glance  any  loss  in  a 
herd  of  cattle  which  may  amount  to  half  a  thousand. 
In  the  same  way  the  want  of  a  written  language  is  often 
supplied  by  symbolism.  Puzzle  as  it  might  a  person 
of  education  to  read  a  letter,  expressed  by  a  bundle 
containing  a  stone,  a  piece  of  charcoal,  a  rag,  a 
pepper-pod,  and  a  grain  of  parched  corn,  this  would 
be  the  way  of  saying  in  Yoruba,  that,  though  the 
sender  was  as  strong  and  firm  as  a  stone,  his  pros- 
pects were  as  dark  as  charcoal ;  that  his  clothes  were 
in  rags ;  that  he  was  so  feverish  with  anxiety  that 
his  skin  burned  like  pepper,  even  enough  to  cause 


INTRODUCTION.  vii 

corn  to  wither.  The  Niam-Niam,  again,  who  declare 
war  by  hanging  on  a  tree  an  ear  of  maize,  a  fowl's 
feather,  and  an  arrow,  thereby  giving  contingent 
enemies  to  understand  that  arrows  will  avenge  any 
injury  done  to  a  single  fowl  or  a  single  ear  of  maize, 
convey  their  meaning  quite  as  clearly  as  the  most 
politely  framed  ultimata  of  any  Foreign  Office  in 
Europe. 

Many  of  the  beliefs  attributed  to  savages  are  no 
fair  test  of  their  general  reasoning  capabilities  ;  for 
there  are  degrees  of  credulity  in  savage  as  in  civilised 
life,  and  reason  everywhere  struggles  to  exist.  When 
Pelopidas,  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Leuctra,  received 
commands  in  a  dream  to  sacrifice  to  certain  shades  a 
virgin  with  chestnut  hair,  there  were  not  wanting 
soldiers,  even  in  that  army  of  Boeotians,  who  had  the 
shrewdness  to  think  and  the  courage  to  say,  that  it 
was  absurd  to  suppose  any  divine  powers  could  delight 
in  the  slaughter  and  sacrifice  of  human  beings,  and 
that,  if  there  were  such,  they  deserved  no  reverence. 
All  stages  of  culture  thus  have  their  dissenters,  their 
wicked  reasoners.  Among  the  Ahts  only  the  most 
superstitious  now  burn  the  house  of  a  dead  man,  with 
all  its  contents,  for  fear  of  offending  his  ghost.  The 
Zulus,  whose  sole  religion  consists  in  ancestor-worship, 


viii  INTRODUCTION. 

exhibited  often  in  the  most  ridiculous  ceremonies, 
begin  to  doubt  the  power  and  even  the  existence  of 
their  Amatongo,  or  dead  ancestors,  if,  when  they  are 
sick,  their  prayers  and  sacrifices  fail  to  effect  a  cure. 

The  Tongan  king,  Finow,  often  stated  to  Mariner 
his  doubts  about  the  existence  of  the  gods,  and 
expressed  the  opinion,  that  men  were  fools  for  be- 
lieving all  they  were  told  by  the  priests ;  whilst  his 
saying,  that  the  gods  always  favoured  that  side  in  war 
on  which  there  were  the  greatest  chiefs  and  warriors, 
recalls  the  opinion  of  a  far  more  famous  potentate  than 
Finow.  The  disrespect,  indeed,  that  Finow  showed 
to  the  Tongan  religion  was  such,  that  his  subjects 
explained  violent  thunderstorms  as  the  dissensions  of 
the  gods  in  Bolotu  about  his  punishment.  On  the 
other  hand,  savages  are  also  subject  to  relapses  of 
superstition,  such  as  with  us  are  dignified  by  the  name 
of  '  movements  ; '  an  American  tribe  who  traced  their 
origin  to  a  dog  were  so  firmly  impressed  by  a  fanatic 
with  the  sin  of  attaching  their  canine  relatives  to  their 
sledges,  that  they  resolved  to  use  dogs  no  more,  but 
women  instead,  for  dragging  their  possessions. 

Savage  ideas  of  morality  and  of  government  seem 
to  agree  fundamentally  with  those  of  more  advanced 
populations,  the  ideas  of  the  latter  differing,  indeed, 


INTRODUCTION.  ix 

from  the  barbaric  much  as  a  finished  photograph 
differs  from  its  earlier  stage  ;  that  is  to  say,  not  as 
essentially  different,  but  as  having  become  '  fixed'  after 
a  process  of  development.  The  idea  of  the  wrong- 
fulness  of  certain  acts  starts  with  the  fear  of  their 
consequences,  that  of  murder,  for  instance,  from  the 
fear  of  revenge ;  nor  are  such  ideas  ever  separable 
from  the  lowest  levels  of  savage  life.  The  sense  of 
the  sanctity  of  property  begins  with  what  an  indivi- 
dual can  make  or  catch  for  himself  apart  from  tribal 
claims  ;  nor  is  any  state  of  tribal  communism  so  strong 
as  to  recognise  no  private  rights  in  the  people  or 
things  a  man  takes  in  war,  the  game  he  kills,  or  the 
weapons  he  fashions.  Respect  for  the  aged  is  one  of 
the  best  traits  of  savage  life,  for  the  tribes  of  whom  it 
is  asserted  seem  to  outnumber  those  of  whom  it  is 
denied.  In  Equatorial  Africa  young  men  never 
appear  before  old  ones  without  curtseying  nor  pass 
them  by  without  stooping ;  should  they  sit  in  their 
presence,  it  is  '  at  a  humble  distance.'  Nor  are  cases 
of  the  abandonment  of  the  aged  and  infirm  conclusive 
proof  of  a  deficiency  of  natural  affection ;  one  tribe 
who  were  accused  of  so  acting  are  also  known  to  have 
carried  about  with  them  for  years  a  palsied  man  with 
great  tenderness  and  attention.  Truthfulness,  again, 


x  INTRODUCTION. 

is  recognised  as  a  virtue  outside  the  pale  of  the  higher 
religions,  for  Mungo  Park  found  it  one  of  the  first 
lessons  taught  by  Mandingo  women  to  their  children, 
and  he  mentions  the  case  of  one  mother,  whose  only 
consolation  on  the  murder  of  her  son  '  was  the  reflec- 
tion that  the  poor  boy  in  the  course  of  his  life  had 
never  told  an  untruth.' 

Strange  contradictions  abound  in  savage  life,  ex- 
tremes of  barbarity  sometimes  co-existing  with  habits 
of  some  refinement.  The  Ahts,  who  occasionally 
sacrifice  one  of  their  number  to  the  gods,  and  till 
lately  deserted  their  sick  and  aged,  without  the  excuse 
of  scarcity  of  food,  keep  small  mats  of  bark  strips  for 
strangers  to  wipe  their  feet  with,  and  after  meals 
offer  them  water  and  cedar-bark  for  washing  their 
hands  and  mouths.  They  have  also  a  strict  etiquette 
regulating  their  reception  of  guests ;  they  observe 
public  ceremonies  with  extreme  formality  ;  their  men 
of  rank  vie  with  one  another  in  politeness.  The  Niam- 
Niam  are  generally  cannibals,  but  when  several  of 
them  drink  together  'they  may  each  be  observed 
to  wipe  the  rim  of  the  drinking-vessel  before  passing 
it  on.'  The  Bachapins,  among  whom  it  is  said  that  a 
murderer  incurs  no  disgrace,  yet  measure  a  man's 
merit  by  his  industry,  and  despise  a  man  who  does 


INTRODUCTION.  xi 

not  work,  that  is,  hunt,  for  his  living.  The  Aztecs,  with 
their  constant  and  frightful  human  sacrifices,  were  so 
afraid  of  incurring  divine  wrath  for  the  blood  they 
spilled  in  the  chase,  that  they  would  always  preface  a 
hunt  by  burning  incense  to  their  idols,  and  conclude 
it  by  smearing  the  faces  of  their  divinities  with 
the  blood  of  their  game.  To  turn  back  from  the 
procession  which  accompanied  the  sacrifice  of  young 
children  to  the  gods  of  rain  and  water  rendered  a  man 
infamous  and  incapable  of  public  office  ;  yet  death  was 
the  penalty  for  drunkenness  in  either  sex,  and  '  it  was 
considered  degrading  for  a  person  of  quality  to  touch 
wine  at  all,  even  in  seasons  of  festival.'  Similar 
inconsistencies  are  common  in  social  regulations, 
especially  in  those  relating  to  marriage,  stringent 
laws  of  prohibited  degrees  and  the  strictest  etiquette 
often  affording  no  further  evidence  of  purity  of 
manners.  The  most  barbarous  marriage  ceremonies 
are  frequently  attended  with  absurd  forms  of  prudery, 
which  it  is  perhaps  impossible  to  trace  to  their  origin. 
The  instance  of  the  Aleutian  islanders,  who  with  the 
grossest  vices  connect  such  notions  of  propriety  as 
that  either  a  husband  or  a  wife  would  blush  to  address 
the  other  in  the  presence  of  a  stranger,  is  one  among 
many  similar  illustrations  of  a  side  of  savage  life 


xi:  INTRODUCTION*. 

which  but  for  parallels  in  our  own  social  usages  might 
present  itself  as  an  inexplicable  anomaly. 

Better  experience  has  in  so  many  cases  dissipated 
original  assertions  of  an  absolute  want  of  religious 
ideas  among  savages,  that  the  strongest  doubts  must 
be  felt  of  all  similar  negative  propositions.  Theology 
in  one  of  three  grades  seems  rather  to  be  the 
universal  property  of  mankind,  appearing  either 
harmless,  as  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  its  historical 
career,  or  in  its  second  and  middle  stage  as  identical 
with  all  that  is  abominable  and  cruel.  The  classifica- 
tion of  mankind  on  such  a  basis  of  division,  though  it 
could  never  aspire  to  scientific  exactness,  would  afford 
at  least  a  standard  of  practical  discrimination,  by 
which  the  relations  between  Christian  and  non- Chris- 
tian communities  might  to  some  extent  be  adjusted; 
for,  by  considering  any  people  under  one  of  these  three 
aspects,  it  would  be  possible  to  form  some  estimate 
of  their  aptitude  for,  or  need  of,  our  theology,  and  of 
the  advisability  of  our  seeking  to  force  it  upon  them.1 

1  The  justification  of  the  .use  of  the  word  force  is  not  far  to  seek. 
One  of  the  demands  in  the  ultimatum  addressed  to  Cetewayo,  which 
helped  to  bring  about  the  present  unhappy  Zulu  war,  was  for  the 
reinstatement  of  missionaries  in  Zululand.  A  Natal  correspondent  of  the 
Times,  January  28,  1879,  justly  observesabout  this  :  '  If  the  Zulus  object 
to  missionaries — who  certainly  in  many  cases  have  acted  as  spies — why 
force  missionaries  upon  them  ?  '  The  italics  are  not  the  correspondent's. 


INTRODUCTION.  xiii 

Should  the  principle  ever  meet  with  the  acceptance 
it  deserves,  that  missions,  like  charities,  ought  to  be 
discriminate,  it  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  the  direction 
in  which  euch  a  truth  will  be  likely  some  day  to 
receive  practical  recognition. 

For  wherever  native  theology  takes  the  form  of 
cannibalism,  sutteeism,  human  sacrifices,  or  other 
rites  directly  destructive  of  earthly  happiness,  there 
the  teaching  of  missionaries  affords  the  only  hope  of 
a  speedy  reform,  the  only  acquaintance  possible  for 
savage  tribes  with  a  culture  higher  than  their  own, 
save  that  which  is  likely  to  come  to  them  through 
the  medium  of  the  brandy-bottle  or  the  bayonet.  But 
to  send  missions  to  countries  like  Russia  or  China, 
where  there  exist  established  systems  of  religion 
undefiled  by  cruelty,  violates  the  first  principle  of 
the  faith  so  conveyed,  disturbing  the  peace  of  families 
and  nations  with  the  curse  of  religious  animosity. 
When  the  Jesuits  entreated  the  Chinese  Emperor, 
Young-tching,  to  reconsider  his  resolution  to  proscribe 
Christianity,  there  was  some  reason  in  the  imperial 
answer  :  '  What  should  you  say  if  I  sent  a  troop  of 
lamas  and  bonzes  to  your  country,  to  preach  their 
law  there  ? '  The  Taeping  rebellion,  or  civil  war, 
which  devastated  China  for  about  fifteen  years, 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

desolating  hundreds  of  miles  of  fair  towns  and  fertile 
fields,  and  fought  out  among  massacres,  sieges,  and 
famines,  of  quite  indescribable  cruelty  and  horror, 
owed  its  impulse  distinctly  to  the  working  of  Christian 
tracts  among  the  more  ignorant  classes,  followed  by 
a  fanatical  endeavour  to  substitute  a  travesty  of 
Christianity  for  the  older  religions  ;  yet  the  seeds  of  all 
this  misery  are  still  sown  in  China,  in  the  name  and 
by  the  ministers  of  a  religion  of  Peace,  a  religion  that 
has  for  its  first  and  final  rule  of  life  the  duty  of  so 
dealing  with  others  as  we  should  wish  them  to  deal 
with  ourselves. 

Cases  of  the  third  class,  where  the  state  of  religious 
belief  is  so  rudimentary  as  to  be  innocuous,  are  un- 
happily few ;  but  where  such  belief  has  not  advanced  to 
the  detriment  of  the  general  welfare,  it  would  seem  the 
kindest  policy  not  to  inspire  men,  whose  lives  are  spent 
in  the  constant  perils  of  the  woods  or  waves,  with  fears 
of  more  malignant  spirits  than  those  their  own  fancy 
has  created  for  them,  nor  to  teach  them  the  doctrine 
that,  hard  and  black  as  this  world  often  proves  to  them, 
there  is  a  yet  harder  and  blacker  one  beyond.  There 
is  also  some  charm  in  that  variety  of  belief  and 
custom  against  which  we  wage  unremitting  war ;  and 
only  a  tasteless  fanaticism  can  think  with  pure  joy  of 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

the  time,  when  sectarian  chapels  shall  stand  on  every 
island  of  the  seas,  and  Tartarus  be  taught  wherever 
the  sun  shines.  Rites  and  beliefs  lose  the  interest 
which  cling  to  them  in  their  native  home  as  soon  as  it 
is  sought  to  transplant  them  else  where,  just  as  flowers 
lose  their  fragrance  and  beauty  when  once  they  have 
been  separated  from  the  plant  on  which  they  grew. 
For  this  reason  Puritanism  has  but  little  charm  out  of 
England ;  and  though  it  should  please  our  love  of 
uniformity  to  read  (as  we  may)  of  a  Tahitian  chief 
carrying  his  Sabbatarian  scruples  so  far  as  to  ask 
whether,  if  he  saw  ripe  plaintains  by  his  garden-path 
on  Sunday,  he  might  pick  and  eat  them ;  or  of  another 
abstaining  from  turning  a  pig  out  of  his  garden  on 
Sunday,  preferring  to  let  his  sugar-canes  be  devoured  ; 
such  facts  are  yet  no  proof  that  we  make  Christians 
of  savages  ;  they  only  prove  that,  with  some  trouble, 
we  may  make  them  imbeciles. 

It  would  be  difficult,  indeed,  to  pay  too  high  a 
tribute  to  the  unselfish  efforts  of  missionaries,  now 
and  in  past  times,  directly  for  the  benefit  of  mankind 
and  indirectly  for  that  of  science  ;  yet  the  question, 
besides  its  speculative  interest,  derives  some  justifi- 
cation from  the  general  results  of  missions  over  the 
world,  and  from  the  melancholy  disproportion  between 


x«  INTRODUCTION. 

their  actual  and  their  merited  successes  :  Whether  the 
welfare  and  improvement  of  savage  tribes  would  not 
be  best  left  to  themselves  and  to  time?  That  they 
are  not  incapable  of  independent  improvement  there 
is  abundant  evidence  to  show.  Sometimes  it  arises  in  a 
tribe  from  imitation  of  some  neighbouring  tribe,  more 
powerful  but  less  barbarous  than  itself;  sometimes 
from  the  initiative  of  some  reforming  chief  of  its  own. 
Thus  the  Comanche  Indians  of  Texas,  among  whom 
'  Christianity  had  never  been  introduced,'  abolished, 
in  consequence  of  their  intercourse  with  tribes  less 
savage  than  themselves,  the  inhuman  custom  of  killing 
-a  favourite  wife  at  her  husband's  funeral.  Mariner 
was  himself  a  witness  of  the  abolition  on  the  Tongan 
Islands  of  the  custom  of  strangling  the  wife  of  the 
great  Tooitonga  chief  at  his  death.  It  is  said,  again, 
to  be  an  indisputable  fact,  that  the  Monbuttoos  of 
Africa,  whose  '  cannibalism  is  the  most  pronounced 
of  all  the  known  nations  of  Africa,'  have,  '  without 
any  influence  from  the  Mahometan  or  Christian  world, 
attained  to  no  contemptible  degree  of  external  cul- 
ture.' Finow,  the  Tongan  king,  was  a  genuine  re- 
former ;  and  there  have  even  been  kings  of  Dahome 
who  have  wished  the  abolition  of  human  sacrifices. 
Bianswah,  the  great  Chippewya  chief,  put  a  stop,  by 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 

a  treaty  of  peace  with  the  Sioux,  to  the  horrible  prac- 
tice of  burning  prisoners  alive  ;  and,  though  the  peace 
between  the  tribes  was  often  broken,  their  compact 
in  this  respect  was  never  violated.  In  other  instances 
the  modification  of  older  usages  points  to  the  ope- 
ration of  reformative  tendencies.  Thus  the  Nootka 
Indians,  who  used  to  conclude  their  hunting  festivals 
with  a  human  sacrifice,  subsequently  changed  the 
custom  into  the  more  lenient  one  of  sticking  a  boy 
with  knives  in  various  parts  of  his  body.  The  Zulus 
abolished  the  custom  of  killing  slaves  with  a  chief,  to 
prepare  food  and  other  things  for  him  in  the  next 
world  ;  so  that  now  it  is  only  a  tradition  with  them 
that  formerly  when  a  chief  died  he  did  not  die  alone : 
'  when  the  fire  was  kindled  the  chief  was  put  in,  and 
then  his  servants  were  chosen  and  put  in  after  the 
chief ;  the  great  men  followed — they  were  taken  one 
by  one.' 

It  is  moreover  certain  that  in  some  instances 
savages  have  arrived  spontaneously  at  no  contemp- 
tible notions  of  morality,  and  that  they  have  often  lost 
their  native  virtues  by  their  very  contact  with  a  higher 
form  of  faith.  The  African  Bakwains  declared  that 
nothing  described  by  the  missionaries  as  sin  had  ever 
appeared  to  them  otherwise,  except  polygamy ;  and 

a  2 


xviH  INTRODUCTION. 

the  Tongan  chiefs  (if  Mariner  may  be  trusted),  when 
asked  what  motives  they  had,  beyond  their  fear  of 
misfortunes  in  this  life,  for  virtuous  conduct,  replied, 
'  as  if  they  wondered  such  a  question  should  be  asked : ' 
'  The  agreeable  and  happy  feelings  which  a  man  ex- 
periences within  himself  when  he  does  any  good 
action  and  conducts  himself  nobly  and  generously,  as 
a  man  ought  to  do."  The  natural  virtues  attributed 
to  the  same  people  include  honour,  justice,  patrio- 
tism, friendship,  meekness,  modesty,  conjugal  fidelity, 
parental  and  filial  love,  patience  in  suffering,  forbear- 
ance of  temper,  respect  for  rank  and  for  age.  The 
Khonds  of  India,  much  more  savage  than  the  Tongans 
(their  chief  virtues  consisting  in  killing  an  enemy, 
dying  as  a  warrior,  or  living  as  a  priest),  yet  account 
as  sinful  acts  the  refusal  of  hospitality,  the  breach  of 
an  oath  or  promise,  a  lie,  or  the  violation  of  a  pledge 
of  friendship.  The  virtues  the  Maoris  now  possess 
they  are  said  to  have  possessed  before  we  came  among 
them,  namely  honesty,  self-respect,  truthfulness  ;  and 
the  belief  that  these  virtues  are  even  '  fading  under 
their  assumed  Christianity'  recalls  the  tradition  of 
certain  American  tribes,  that  their  lives  and  manners 
were  originally  less  barbarous,  the  Odjibwas,  for  in- 
stance, actually  tracing  the  increase  of  murders,  thefts, 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  xix 

falsehood,  and  disobedience  to  parents,  to  the  advent 
of  the  Christian  whites. 

It  is  also  remarkable  that  in  several  instances 
savages  have  of  themselves  hit  upon  those  very  helps  to 
the  maintenance  of  virtue  which  all  Christian  Churches 
have  found  so  efficacious.  For  we  find  existing 
among  them  as  religious  and  moral  observances  not 
only  Fasting  and  Confession,  but  occasionally  even 
Sermons.  In  the  Tongan  Islands  fonos,  or  public 
assemblies,  were  held,  at  which  the  king  would  address 
his  subjects,  not  only  on  agriculture  but  on  morals 
and  politics  ;  and  the  lower  chiefs  had  fonos  also  for 
the  similar  benefit  of  their  feudal  subordinates.  In 
America,  also,  some  tribes  observed  feasts  at  which 
the  young  were  addressed  on  their  moral  duties,  being 
admonished  to  be  attentive  and  respectful  to  the  old, 
to  obey  their  parents,  never  to  scoff  at  the  decrepit  or 
deformed,  to  be  charitable  and  hospitable.  Not  only 
were  such  precepts  dwelt  on  at  great  length,  but  en- 
forced by  the  examples  of  good  and  bad  individuals, 
just  as  they  might  be  in  London  or  Rome.  Such 
considerations,  indeed,  prove  nothing  against  the  ad- 
ditional good  that  missionaries  may  do  ;  but  they  add 
some  force  to  the  thought  that  had  a  tithe  of  the 
energy,  the  devotion,  the  suffering,  the  money,  that  has 


xx  INTRODUCTION. 

been  lavished  on  coaxing  savages  to  be  baptized,  been 
spent  on  promoting  international  peace  in  Europe, 
wars  might  by  this  time  be  as  extinct,  belong  as 
purely  to  a  past  state  of  things,  as  judicial  combats, 
the  thumbscrew,  or  the  knout. 

The  vexed  question,  whether  savage  life  represents 
a  primitive  or  a  decadent  condition,  whether  it  re- 
presents what  man  at  first  everywhere  was,  or  only 
what  he  may  become,  has  throughout  the  following 
chapters  been  avoided,  that  controversy  being  re- 
garded as  '  laid '  by  the  exhaustive  researches  of 
Mr.  Tylor  and  other  writers.  But  whilst  the  state 
of  the  lowest  modern  savages  is  taken  as  the  nearest 
approximation  we  have  of  the  primitive  state  from 
which  mankind  has  risen,,  it  is  not  pretended  that 
the  state  of  any  particular  tribe  may  not  be  one  to 
which  it  has  fallen.  As  the  low  position  of  many 
Bushmen  tribes  is  quite  explicable  by  their  long 
border-warfare  with  the  Dutch,  and  the  consequent 
cruelties  they  were  exposed  to,  or  as  the  state  of 
many  Brazilian  savages  may  be  traced  to  similar 
contact  with  the  Portuguese,  so  any  case  of  extreme 
savagery  may  be  the  result  of  causes,  whose  opera- 
tion has  no  historical  or  written  proof  to  attest  them. 
The  gigantic  stone  images  on  Easter  Island,  or  the 


INTRODUCTION.  xxi 

great  earthworks  in  America,  are  among  the  proofs, 
that  but  for  such  material  traces  of  its  existence  it 
is  possible  for  a  whole  civilisation  to  vanish,  and  to 
leave  only  the  veriest  savages  on  the  soil  where  it 
flourished.1  As  we  know  that  Europe  was  once  as 
purely  savage  as  parts  of  Africa  are  still,  and  can 
conceive  the  cycle  of  events  restoring  it  to  barbarism,  so 
in  the  depths  of  time  it  may  have  happened  in  places 
where  no  suspicion  of  such  a  history  is  possible.  As 
the  surface  of  the  earth  seems  subjected  to  processes 
of  elevation  and  subsidence,  land  and  sea  constantly 
alternating  their  dominion,  so  it  may  be  with  civili- 
sation, destined  to  no  permanent  home  on  the  earth, 
but  subsiding  here  to  reappear  there,  and  varying 
its  level  as  it  varies  its  latitude. 

As  the  practical  infinity  of  past  time  makes  it 
impossible  to  calculate  the  influence  exercised  in 
different  parts  of  the  world  by  migrations,  by  con- 
quests, or  by  commerce,  except  within  a  very  limited 
period,  so  it  precludes  any  definite  belief  in  ethno- 
logical divisions,  and  relegates  the  question  of  the 
•unity  of  the  human  race,  like  that  of  its  origin,  to  the 
limbo  of  profitless  discussion.  No  characteristic  has 
yet  been  found  by  which  mankind  can  be  classified 

J  See  on  £his  subject  Mr.  Wallace's  Tropical  Nature,  pp.  290-300. 


xxii  INTRODUCTION. 

distinctly  into  races ;  and  with  all  the  differences  of 
colour,  hair,  skull,  or  language,  which  now  suffice 
for  purposes  of  nomenclature,  it  remains  true  that 
there  is  nothing  to  choose  between  the  hypothesis 
that  we  constitute  only  one  species  and  the  hypothesis 
that  we  constitute  several.  The  world  is  so  old  as 
to  admit  of  divergences  from  a  single  original  type 
quite  as  wide  as  any  that  exist ;  whilst,  on  the  other 
hand,  similarity  of  customs  (such,  for  instance,  as  that 
Tartars  in  Asia,  Sioux  Indians  in  America,  and 
Kamschadals  should  all  regard  it  as  a  sin  to  touch 
a  fire  with  a  knife),  fail  us  as  a  proof  of  a  unity  of 
origin,  in  the  face  of  our  ignorance  of  prehistoric 
antiquity. 

That  the  works  which  have  treated  before,  and 
better,  of  the  subjects  included  in  the  following 
chapters  should  have  exercised  no  deterrent  effect  in 
treating  of  them  again,  must  find  its  excuse  in  the 
general  interest  which  those  works  have  produced 
for  the  studies  in  question,  and  of  which  the  present 
work  is  but  a  sign  and  consequence.  The  reader 
has  only  himself  to  blame,  if,  having  read  the  works 
on  the  same  or  similar  subjects  by  Mr.  Tylor,  Mr. 
Spencer,  and  Sir  John  Lubbock,  or  those  in  German 
by  Peschel,  Wuttke,  or  Waitz,  he  troubles  himself 


INTRODUCTION.  xxiii 

with  yet  another  book  which  seeks  rather  to  illustrate 
than  to  exhaust  the  many  interesting  problems  con- 
nected with  savage  life  ;  but  the  present  writer,  whilst 
under  the  deepest  obligations  to  the  labours  of  his 
predecessors — without  which  his  own  would  have 
been  impossible — has  not  studied  simply  to  recapitu- 
late their  conclusions,  but  has  sought  rather  to  arrive 
at  such  results  as  the  evidence  forced  upon  him,  inde- 
pendently as  far  as  possible  of  existing  theories  or  of 
the  authority  upon  which  they  rest.  Should  he  have 
succeeded  in  making  anyone  think  better  than  before, 
with  more  interest  and  sympathy,  of  those  outcasts 
of  the  world  whom  we  designate  as  savage,  something 
at  least  will  have  been  done  to  claim  for  them  a  kind- 
lier treatment  and  respect  than  in  popular  estimation 
they  either  deserve  or  obtain. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 
SOME   SAVAGE   MYTHS   AND   BELIEFS. 

The  universality  of  religion — Nature  and  tests  of  the  evidence  relating 
to  the  subject — Savage  ideas  of  creation  :  ideas  of  a  first  man  con- 
fused with  ideas  of  a  first  cause — Illustrative  examples  of  primitive 
cosmogony — Origin  of  the  myth  of  the  Two  Contending  Brothers 
— Prevalence  of  the  belief  in  a  Golden  Age — Deluge-myths — Their 
possible  origin  in  recollections  of  local  floods,  in  the  changes  of  the 
land-level,  or  in  fancies  about  the  skies — Absence  in  most  of  them 
of  any  connection  with  human  crime — Vivid  belief  in  futurity  among 
the  lower  races — Gradual  growth  of  the  idea  of  the  future  life  as 
affected  by  the  present  one — Difficulties  in  the  attainment  of  future 
happiness — The  great  difference  between  savage  and  civilised  beliefs 
regarding  the  Unknown  illustrated  by  the  savage  belief  in  a  future 
life  for  animals  or  things  as  well  as  for  men — Compensations  in  the 
savage's  creed  :  no  terror  of  death  nor  of  the  future  .  pages  1-40 

CHAPTER   II. 
SAVAGE   MODES   OF   PRAYER. 

Difficulties  in  the  study  of  natural  religions— Importance  of  prayer  in 
savage  life — Examples  of  savage  prayers — Are  they  limited  to  tem- 
poral interests  ? — Baptismal  rites  equivalent  to  prayers — Prayers  in 
the  form  of  toasts — The  worship  of  evil  spirits — Doubtful  distinc- 
tion between  good  and  bad  divinities  among  savages — Treatment 
of  obdurate  gods — Relation  of  sacrifice  to  prayer — Tendency  of 
sacrifices  to  become  more  numerous  and  severe — Pantomimic  dances 
possibly  acted  petitions — The  African  gorilla-dance,  the  Mandan 


xxvi  CONTENTS. 

buffalo-dance,  the  Sioux  bear-dance,  the  Australian  kangaroo- 
dance— A  similar  idea  in  prayers  for  rain — War-dances— Fetichistic 
practices  perhaps  extinct  forms  of  prayer — Prayers  to  animals,  to  the 
moon,  to  trees,  and  their  survival  in  modem  folk-lore  pages  41-77 

CHAPTER   III. 
SOME   SAVAGE   PROVERBS. 

Differences  of  national  character  reflected  in  proverbs — Illustrated  by 
Italian  and  German  sayings  on  the  custom  of  the  Vendetta,  by 
Italian  and  Persian  proverbs  about  truth,  by  Catholic  and  Protes- 
tant sentiments  about  priests — Comparison  between  the  proverbs  of 
savage  and  civilised  communities — Similarities  of  their  feeling  as 
regards  poverty,  blame,  experience,  perseverance,  habit,  cause, 
mendacity — Intelligence  displayed  in  many  savage  proverbs — 
European  proverbs  of  savage  coinage,  exemplified  by  a  comparison 
between  African  and  European  proverbs  relating  to  women — In- 
ferences deducible  from  known  proverbs  .  .  .  78-100 

CHAPTER   IV. 
SAVAGE   MORAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

Are  there  any  authentic  cases  of  a  total  absence  of  moral  distinctions 
among  savages  ? — Unsatisfactory  evidence  regarding  their  moral 
notions — The  Bushman's  notion  of  a  good  and  bad  action — The 
fear  of  fellow-tribesmen,  of  spirits  and  ghosts,  the  primary  source  of 
distinction  in  the  moral  quality  of  actions — Moral  restraints  in 
secular  punishments — Compensation  necessary  for  homicide — Col- 
lective responsibility  for  crimes — Is  murder  ever  regarded  as  in- 
different?— Differed  institutions  for  the  prevention  of  wrongs — 
Greenland  singing-combats,  tabu,  muru,  confession.  Sins  or  fan- 
ciful wrong  acts,  illustrated  by  feelings  of  proper  behaviour  with 
regard  to  storms,  to  ancestors,  to  names,  and  to  animals — Little 
evidence  among  savages  of  any  idea  of  moral  qualities  apart  from 
the  consequences  of  actions — Their  ideas  of  a  future  state  throw 
little  light  on  iheir  moral  sentiments- — Doubtful  evidence  of  a  belief 
in  a  future  life  as  affected  by  good  or  bad  conduct — Fundamental 
agreement  between  savage  and  civilised  morality  .  .  101-129 


CONTENTS.  xxvii 

CHAPTER  V. 
SAVAGE   POLITICAL    LIFE. 

Theory  of  social  evolution — The  hunting  state  not  necessarily  one  of 
political  inferiority — Do  any  tribes  exist  without  any  form  of  social 
government? — Examples  of  the  loosest  social  connections — Connec- 
tion of  agriculture  and  slavery  with  more  complex  social  systems — 
Freedom  and  equality  little  known  in  savage  life — Natural  founda- 
tions for  distinction  between  aristocracy  and  commonalty — Ordeals 
previous  to  admission  to  higher  ranks — Devices  for  marking  dif- 
ferences of  position  :  scars,  dress,  titles,  artificial  language,  funeral 
ceremonies,  crests — Savage  monarchy — Confusion  between  gods 
and  kings — Old  Japanese  and  Samoan  feelings  about  monarchy — 
Limitations  on  savage  despotism — Orders  of  society,  approaching 
to  a  system  of  caste — -The  relation  of  tabu  to  monarchy — Primo- 
geniture in  Tahiti — Absurd  rights  of  nephews  in  Fiji — Taxation  a 
festival  in  savage  life — The  subordination  of  the  priesthood  to  the 
State  pages 130-161 

CHAPTER  VI. 
SAVAGE   PENAL    LAWS. 

The  interest  of  savage  laws — Stage  in  which  the  redress  of  wrongs  is  a 
merely  personal  matter — Tendency  of  offences  to  be  regarded  as 
matters  of  family  or  tribal  interest — Growth  of  the  conception  of 
crime  as  an  offence  against  the  tribe,  promoted  by  the  custom  of 
submitting  disputes  to  the  judgment  of  chiefs,  and  marked  by 
customs,  which,  while  making  such  chiefs  judges,  leave  the  punish- 
ment of  the  criminal  to  the  injured  party — Such  customs  found  in 
America,  Africa,  Samoa,  Afghanistan — Tendency  of  penal  laws  to 
become  more  cruel — Primitive  punishments  not  gratuitously  cruel — 
Savage  laws  not  always  arbitrary  nor  uncertain — Force  of  prece- 
dents in  Caffre  law — Regularity  in  legal  procedure — Curious  notions 
of  equity — The  ordeal  in  savage  law,  not  an  appeal  to  the  judgment 
of  God,  but  an  invention  of  priestcraft  for  the  detection  of  guilt — 
Comparison  of  some  ordeals — Their  utility  for  the  discovery  of  guilt-- 


nil  CONTENTS. 

Death  a  frequent  result  of  concealing  real  or  fancied  guilt — Oaths  a 
later  development  of  the  ordeal — The  English  judicial  oath  com- 
pared with  that  in  vogue  in  Samoa — Origin  of  the  supposed  virtue 
in  touching  or  kissing  the  thing  sworn  by — Invisible  connection 
between  the  thing  touched  and  the  calamity  invoked  in  touch- 
ing it pages  162-187 


CHAPTER  VII. 
EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

Curious  wedding  custom  of  the  Garos,  in  India — Natural  affection 
among  savages,  tested  by  some  of  the  evidence  of  eye-witnesses — 
Love-stories — Treatment  of  women  not  uniformly  bad  among  savages 
— Married  life — Duty  of  bashfulness,  displayed  in  curious  manners  and 
notions  of  the  Esquimaux,  the  Hottentots,  the  Hos,  the  Thlinkeets, 
the  Kirghiz,  Kamschadals,  the  Bushmen,  the  Zulus,  and  the  Be- 
douins— Conventional  reserve  between  husband  and  wife — Restric- 
tions on  intercourse  between  near  relations — Kicking  and  screaming 
the  proper  behaviour  at  weddings — Real  disinclination  also  often  a 
cause  for  the  employment  of  real  force — The  ceremony  of  capture 
affords  a  bride  a  real  chance  of  escape  from  a  bridegroom  she 
dislikes — Mercantile  aspect  of  marriage — Marriages  by  capture  often 
voluntary  elopements  in  defeat  of  parental  contracts,  illustrated  by 
customs  in  India,  Afghanistan,  Bokhara — Such  marriages  legalised 
by  successful  elopement  and  subsequent  settlement  with  parents — 
Exogamy  and  endogamy,  how  related — Doubtful  origin  of  exogamy 
— Its  effect  in  preserving  peace  between  tribes — Woman-stealing  the 
result  of  artificial  social  customs — Origin  of  the  difference  of  lan- 
guage between  the  sexes  among  the  Caribs — The  same  phenomenon 
among  the  Zulus — Doubtful  evidence  of  a  total  absence  of  marriage 
ceremonies 188-238 


CHAPTER   VIII. 
THE   FAIRY-LORE  OF   SAVAGES. 

Primitive  philosophy  of  nature — Astro-mythology  of  Australian  tribes, 
of  the  Tasmanians,  the  Bushmen,  the  Esquimaux,  Hervey  Islanders, 


CONTENTS.  xxix 

Thlinkeet  Indians — Such  myths  invented  to  account  for  natural 
phenomena — Not  always  the  result  of  forgotten  etymologies — The 
Aht  story  of  the  origin  of  the  moon — American  story  of  the  robin — 
Hervey  Islanders'  story  of  the  sole — Stories  also  invented  to  account 
for  curious  customs  or  beliefs — Reason  given  by  the  Irish  for  their 
annual  persecution  of  the  wren — The  story  of  the  wren  and  the 
eagle,  very  similar  in  Ireland  and  North  America — Facility  of  the 
dispersion  of  stories  often  accounts  for  their  resemblance — Wide 
range  of  the  story  of  Faithful  John — Polynesian  stories  of  Maui 
stopping  the  sun's  motion — the  same  idea  in  Wallachia  and  North 
America — Many  similar  stories  arose  independently  of  each  other, 
as  the  versions  of  the  idea  contained  in  Jack  and  the  Beanstalk — 
Some  Aryan  myths,  explained  as  fancies  about  the  clouds,  found 
also  in  the  New  World — Hindu  myth  of  Urvasi  compared  with 
myths  from  Borneo  and  America — Story-roots  to  be  looked  for  on 
earth,  not  in  the  clouds — Celestial  and  terrestrial  phenomena  con- 
fused— The  influence  of  dreams  in  the  production  of  myths — The 
influence  of  flattery — Tendency  of  chiefs  and  sorcerers  to  become 
gods  and  heroes  after  death — Zeus  com  pared  with  the  culture-heroes 
of  savage  mythology — The  Hottentot  Utixo,  Mannan  MacLear, 
Manabozho,  Viracocha,  Quetzalcoatl,  Heitsi  Eibip,  all  probably  of 
human  origin — Nicknames  a  factor  in  mythology — Tendency  to 
personify  abstractions — Vivid  imagination  of  savages,  pages  239-275 


CHAPTER  IX. 
COMPARATIVE    FOLK-LORE. 

Interest  of  folk-lore  due  to  the  wide  range  of  similar  superstitions— 
Three  ways  of  accounting  for  such  resemblances — Great  extent  of 
superstition  in  civilised  life — Savage  incomplete  distinction  of  things 
— Motion  and  life  identified — Analogy  of  bee  superstitions  with 
superstitions  about  inanimate  things — Fear  of  offending  animals 
by  a  light  use  of  their  names — Spiritualistic  character  of  witchcraft — 
Illustrations — Relics  of  object-worship — Sacred  trees,  animals, 
birds— Reverence  for  red  things — Chinese  analogues  to  Aryan  folk- 
lore— Mythology  probably  founded  on  folk-lore,  not  folk-lore  on 


ic  CONTENTS. 

mythology — Traces  of  fire-worship — Beltane  fires,  formerly  perhaps 
connected  with  human  sacrifices — Scotch  need-fires  for  cattle — 
Similar  customs  among  the  Mayas  of  America  and  the  Hottentots 
— Ideas  about  the  purity  of  new  fire — Recent  examples  of  the  sacri- 
fice of  living  things  to  appease  spirits — Moon  superstitions  like 
those  about  the  tides — Remnants  of  water-worship — Folk-lore  a  link 
between  civilisation  and  barbarism — Influence  of  Christianity  on 
folk-lore — The  history  of  mankind  that  of  a  rise,  not  of  a 
fall pages  276-315 


I. 

SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

THE  question  of  the  universality  of  religion,  of  its 
presence  in  some  form  or  another  in  every  part  of  the 
world,  seems  to  be  one  of  those  which  lie  beyond  the 
bounds  of  a  dogmatic  answer.  For  the  accounts  of 
missionaries  and  travellers,  which  furnish  the  only 
data  for  its  solution,  have  been  so  largely  vitiated,  if 
not  by  a  consciousness  of  the  interests  supposed  to 
be  at  stake,  at  least  by  so  strong  an  intolerance  for 
the  tenets  of  native  savage  religions,  that  it  seems 
impossible  to  make  sufficient  allowance  either  for  the 
bias  of  individual  writers  or  for  the  extent  to  which 
they  may  have  misunderstood,  or  been  purposely 
misled  by,  their  informants. 

Although,  however,  on  the  subject  of  native 
religions  we  can  never  hope  for  more  than  approxi- 
mate truth,  the  reports  of  missionaries  and  others, 
written  at  different  periods  of  time  about  the  same 
place  or  contemporaneously  about  widely  remote 
places,  as  they  must  be  free  from  all  possible  sus- 

B 


2  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

picion  of  collusion,  so  they  supply  a  kind  of  measure 
of  probability  by  which  the  credibility  of  any  given 
belief  may  be  tested.  Thus  an  idea,  too  inconceivable 
to  be  credited,  if  only  reported  of  one  tribe  of  the 
human  race,  may  be  safely  accepted  as  seriously  held, 
if  reported  of  several  tribes  in  different  parts  of  the 
world.  An  Englishman,  for  instance,  however  much 
winds  and  storms  may  mentally  vex  him,  would 
scarcely  think  of  testifying  his  repugnance  to  them 
by  the  physical  remonstrance  of  his  fists  and  lungs, 
nor  would  he  easily  believe  that  any  people  of  the 
earth  should  seriously  treat  the  wind  in  this  way  as  a 
material  agent.  If  he  were  told  that  the  Namaquas 
shot  poisoned  arrows  at  storms  to  drive  them  away, 
he  would  show  no  unreasonable  scepticism  in  dis- 
believing the  fact  ;  but  if  he  learnt  on  independent 
authority  that  the  Payaguan  Indians  of  North 
America  rush  with  firebrands  and  clenched  fists 
against  the  wind  that  threatens  to  blow  down  their 
huts ;  that  in  Russia  the  Esthonians  throw  stones 
and  knives  against  a  whirlwind  of  dust,  pursuing  it 
with  cries  ;  that  the  Kalmucks  fire  their  guns  to  drive 
the  storm-demons  away  ;  that  Zulu  rain-doctors  or 
heaven-herds  whistle  to  lightning  to  leave  the  skies 
just  as  they  whistle  to  cattle  to  leave  their  pens ; 
and  that  also  in  the  Aleutian  Islands  a  whole  village 
will  unite  to  shriek  and  strike  against  the  raging  wind, 
he  would  have  to  acknowledge  that  the  statement 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  3 

about  the  Namaquas  contained  in  itself  nothing 
intrinsically  improbable.  And  besides  this  test  of 
genuine  savage  thought,  a  test  which  obviously 
admits  of  almost  infinite  application,  there  is*  another 
one  no  less  serviceable  in  ethnological  criticism, 
namely,  where  the  reality  of  a  belief  is  supported  by 
customs,  widely  spread  and  otherwise  unintelligible. 
No  better  illustration  can  be  given  of  this  than  the 
belief,  which,  asserted  by  itself,  would  be  universally 
disbelieved,  in  a  second  life  not  only  for  men  but  for 
material  things  ;  but  which,  supported  as  it  is  by  the 
practice,  common  alike  in  the  old  world  and  the  new, 
of  burying  objects  with  their  owner  to  live  again  with 
him  in  another  state,  is  certified  beyond  all  possibility 
of  doubt.  If  to  us  there  seems  a  no  more  self-evident 
truth  than  that  a  man  can  take  nothing  with  him  out 
of  the  world,  a  vast  mass  of  evidence  proves,  that  the 
discovery  of  this  truth  is  one  of  comparatively  modern 
date  and  of  still  quite  partial  distribution  over  the 
globe. 

So  much,  then,  being  premised  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  evidence  on  which  our  knowledge  of  the  lower 
races  depends,  and  as  to  the  limits  within  which  such 
evidence  may  be  received  and  its  veracity  tested,  let 
us  proceed  to  examine  some  of  the  higher  beliefs  of 
savages,  which,  as  they  bear  some  analogy  to  the 
beliefs  on  similar  subjects  of  more  advanced  societies, 
are  in  a  sense  religious,  and,  so  far  at  least  as  the 

B  2 


4  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

collected  information  justifies  us  in  judging,  seem  of 
indigenous  and  independent  growth. 

Few  results  of  ethnology  are  more  interesting 
than  the*  wide-spread  belief  among  savages,  arrived  at 
purely  by  their  own  reasoning  faculties,  in  a  creator 
of  things.  The  recorded  instances  of  such  a  belief 
are,  indeed,  so  numerous  as  to  make  it  doubtful 
whether  instances  to  the  contrary  may  not  have  been 
based  on  too  scant  information.  The  difficulty  of 
obtaining  sound  evidence  on  such  subjects  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  experience  of  Dobritzhoffer,  the 
Jesuit  missionary,  who  spent  seven  years  among  the 
Abipones  of  South  America.  For  when  he  asked 
them  whether  the  wonderful  course  of  the  stars  and 
heavenly  bodies  had  never  raised  in  their  minds  the 
thought  of  an  invisible  being  who  had  made  and  who 
guided  them,  he  got  for  answer  that  of  what  happened 
in  heaven,  or  of  the  maker  or  ruler  of  the  stars,  the 
ancestors  of  the  Abipones  had  never  cared  to  think, 
finding  ample  occupation  for  their  thoughts  in  the  pro- 
viding of  grass  and  water  for  their  horses.  Yet  the 
Abipones  really  believed  that  they  had  been  created 
by  an  Indian  like  themselves,  whose  name  they 
mentioned  with  great  reverence  and  whom  they 
spoke  of  as  their  '  grandfather,'  because  he  had  lived 
so  long  ago.  He  was  still,  they  fancied,  to  be  seen  in 
the  Pleiades  ;  and  when  that  constellation  disappeared 
for  some  months  from  the  sky  they  would  bewail  the 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  5 

illness  of  their  grandfather,  and  congratulate  him  on 
his  recovery  when  he  returned  in  May.  Still,  the 
creator  of  savage  reasoning  is  not  necessarily  a 
creator  of  all  things,  but  only  of  some,  like  Caliban's 
Setebos,  who  made  the  moon  and  the  sun,  and  the 
isle  and  all  things  on  it — 

But  not  the  stars ;  the  stars  came  otherwise. 

So  that  it  is  possible  the  creator  of  the  Abipones  was 
merely  their  deified  First  Ancestor.  For  on  nothing 
is  savage  thought  more  confused  than  on  the  connec- 
tion between  the  first  man  who  lived  on  the  world 
and  the  actual  Creator  of  the  world,  as  if  in  the 
logical  need  of  a  first  cause  they  had  been  unable  to 
divest  it  of  human  personality,  or  as  if  the  natural 
idea  of  a  first  man  had  led  to  the  idea  of  his  having 
created  the  world.  Thus  Greenlanders  are  divided 
as  to  whether  Kaliak  was  really  the  creator  of  all 
things  or  only  the  first  man  who  sprang  from  the 
earth.  The  Minnetarrees  of  North  America  believed 
that  at  first  everything  was  water  and  there  was  no 
earth  at  all,  till  the  First  Man,  the  never-dying  one, 
the  Lord  of  Life,  sent  down  the  great  red-eyed  bird 
to  bring  up  the  earth.  The  Mingo  tribes  also  'revere 
and  make  offerings  to  the  First  Man,  he  who  was 
saved  at  the  great  deluge,  as  a  powerful  deity  under 
the  Master  of  Life,  or  even  as  identified  with  him  ;  ' 
whilst  among  the  Dog-ribs  the  First  Man,  Chapewee, 


6  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

was  also  creator  of  the  sun  and  moon.  The  Zulus  of 
Africa  likewise  merge  the  ideas  of  the  First  Man  and 
the  Creator,  the  great  Unkulunkulu  ;  as  also  do  the 
Caribs,  who  believe  that  Louquo,  the  uncreate  first 
Carib,  descended  from  heaven  to  make  the  earth  and 
also  to  become  the  father  of  men.1  So  again  in  the 
Aht  belief  Quawteaht  is  not  only  'the  first  Indian  who 
ever  lived,'  their  forefather,  but  the  maker  of  most 
things  visible,  of  the  earth  and  all  animals,  yet  not  of 
the  sun  and  moon.2  It  seems,  therefore,  not  impro- 
bable that  savage  speculation,  being  more  naturally 
impelled  to  assume  a  cause  for  men  than  a  cause  for 
other  things,  postulated  a  First  Man  as  primeval 
ancestor,  and  then  applying  an  hypothesis,  which 
served  so  well  to  account  for  their  own  existence,  to 
account  for  that  of  the  world  in  general,  made  the 
Father  of  Men  the  creator  of  all  things  ;  in  other 
words,  that  the  idea  of  a  First  Man  preceded  and 
prepared  the  way  for  the  idea  of  a  first  cause. 

However  this  may  be,  and  admitting  the  possible 
existence  of  tribes  absolutely  devoid  of  any  idea  of 
creation  at  all,  the  following  savage  fancies  about  it 
are  not  without  their  interest  as  typical  examples  of 
primitive  cosmogony. 

In  one  of  the  Dog-rib  Indian  sagas  an  important 
part  in  the  creation  is  played  by  a  great  bird,  as  among 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Cultttre,  ii.  312,  313,  333. 
1  Sproat,  Savage  Life,  178,  179,  209,  210. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  7 

several  other  tribes  who  loved  to  trace  their  origin 
to  a  bird,  as  some  would  trace  theirs  to  a  toad  or  a 
rattlesnake.  Originally,  the  saga  runs,  the  world  was 
nothing  but  a  wide,  waste  sea,  without  any  living 
thing  upon  it  save  a  gigantic  bird,  who  with  the 
glance  of  its  fiery  eyes  produced  the  lightning,  and 
with  the  flapping  of  its  wings  the  thunder.  This  bird, 
by  diving  into  the  sea,  caused  the  earth  to  appear 
above  it,  and  proceeded  to  call  all  animals  to  its 
surface  (except,  indeed,  the  Chippewya  Indians,  who 
were  descended  from  a  dog).  When  its  work  was 
complete  it  made  a  great  arrow,  which  it  bade  the 
Indians  keep  with  great  care ;  and  when  this  was 
lost,  owing  to  the  stupidity  of  the  Chippewyas,  it  was 
so  angry  that  it  left  the  earth,  never  afterwards  to  re- 
visit it  ;  and  men  now  live  no  longer,  as  they  did  in 
those  days,  till  their  throats  are  worn  through  with 
eating  and  their  feet  with  walking  the  earth.1 

Many  thousands  of  miles  separate  the  Tongan 
Islands  from  North  America,  yet  there  too  we  find 
the  idea  of  the  earth  having  come  from  the  waters. 
In  the  beginning  nothing  was  to  be  seen  above  the 
waste  of  waters  but  the  Island  of  Bolotu,  which  is  as 
everlasting  as  the  gods  who  dwell  there  or  as  the 
stars  and  the  sea.  One  day  the  god  Tangaloa  went 
to  fish  in  the  sea,  when,  feeling  something  heavy  at 
the  end  of  his  line,  he  drew  it  in,  and  there  perceived 

1  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  v.  173 ;  and  Bancroft,  iii.  105. 


8  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS 

the  tops  of  rocks,  which  continued  to  increase  in  size 
and  number  till  they  formed  a  large  continent,  and 
his  line  broke,  and  only  the  Tongan  Islands  remained 
above  the  surface.  These  Tangaloa,  with  the  help 
of  the  other  gods,  filled  with  trees  and  herbs  and 
animals  from  Bolotu,  only  of  a  smaller  size  and  not 
immortal.  Then  he  bade  his  two  sons  take  their 
wives  and  go  to  dwell  in  Tonga,  dividing  the  land 
and  dwelling  apart.  The  younger  brother  was 
steady  and  industrious,  and  made  many  discoveries  ; 
but  the  elder  was  idle  and  slept  away  his  time,  and 
envied  the  works  of  his  brother,  till  at  last  his  envy 
grew  so  strong  that  one  day  he  murdered  him.  Then 
came  Tangaloa  in  wrath  from  Bolotu,  to  ask  him 
why  he  had  slain  his  brother,  and  he  bade  him  bring 
his  brother's  family  to  him.  They  were  told  to  take 
their  boats  and  sail  eastward  till  they  came  to  a 
great  land  to  dwell  in.  '  Your  skin '  (to  this  effect 
ran  Tangaloa's  blessing)  '  shall  be  white  as  your 
souls,  for  your  souls  are  pure  ;  you  shall  be  wise, 
make  axes,  have  all  other  riches,  and  great  boats. 
I  myself  will  command  the  wind  to  blow  from  your 
land  to  Tonga,  but  the  people  of  Tonga  will  not  be 
able  with  their  bad  boats  to  reach  you.'  To  the 
others  he  said  :  '  You  shall  be  black,  because  your 
souls  are  black,  and  you  shall  remain  poor.  You 
shall  not  be  able  to  prepare  useful  things,  nor  to  go 
to  the  land  of  your  brothers.  But  your  brothers 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  9 

shall  come  to  Tonga  and  trade  with   you    as  they 
please.'  l 

This  Tongan  creation-myth  is  especially  striking, 
not  only  from  its  resemblance  to  the  well-known 
stories  of  Cain  and  Abel  or  of  Romulus  and  Remus, 
but  from  the  wonderful  extension  of  a  similar  story 
over  the  world.  It  has  been  found  among  the  Es- 
quimaux, among  the  Hervey  Islanders,  among  the 
Hindoos,  among  the  Iroquois  of  America.  Its  origin 
perhaps  lies  in  early  and  rude  attempts  to  account 
for  the  more  obvious  dualisms  in  nature,  as  those,  for 
instance,  between  the  sun  and  the  moon,  or  between 
warm  and  cold  winds.  In  the  Iroquois  version 
the  elder  brother  who  killed  the  younger  is  said  to 
have  been  identical  with  the  sun,  though  his  mother, 
not  the  brother  he  killed,  was  the  moon.2  A  curious 
Indian  drawing  has  been  preserved  in  which  the  god 
of  the  north  wind,  or  of  cold  weather,  contends  with 
the  god  of  the  south,  or  of  warmth.  The  former  is 
figured  in  a  snowstorm,  the  latter  in  rain  ;  wolves 
fight  on  the  side  of  the  one,  the  crow  and  plover  on 
that  of  the  other.  The  conflict  is  terrible ;  the 
southern  god  is  worsted,  cold  weather  prevails,  and 
the  earth  is  frozen  up.  But  in  spring  he  sends  forth 
his  crow  and  plover,  who  defeat  the  wolves,  and  the 
northern  god  is  drowned  in  a  flood  of  spray  which 
arises  from  the  melting  of  the  snow  and  ice.  And  in 

J  Mariner,  Tonga  Islands,  ii.  121-4.      -  Schoolcraft,  /.  71.,  v.  p.  155. 


io  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

this  contention  for  cold  and  warm  weather  it  is  be- 
lieved they  will  battle  as  long  as  the  world  shall  endure.1 
The  Kamchadal  belief  is  instructive,  as  showing 
that  by  the  creation  of  the  world  the  savage  only  means 
that  small  portion  of  it  which  he  knows,  and  that,  so  far 
from  it  being  any  proof  of  his  intelligence  to  suppose  a 
cause  for  the  hills  or  island  which  limit  his  energies, 
it  is  rather  his  want  of  logical  thought  which  impels 
him  to  the  belief.  For  seeing,  as  he  does,  a  spirit  in 
everything,  whether  it  be  moving  animal,  or  rushing 
wind,  or  standing  stone,  and  accounting,  as  he  does, 
for  everything  by  a  spirit  which  is  at  once  its  cause 
and  controlling  principle,  it  is  only  natural  that  he 
should  draw  from  his  unlimited  spirit-world  one  who 
made  and  governs  all  things.  Thus  the  Kamchadals 
believe  that  after  their  supreme  deity,  of  whom 
they  predicate  nothing  but  existence,  the  greatest 
god  is  Kutka.  Kutka  created  the  heavens  and 
the  earth,  making  both  eternal,  like  the  men  and 
creatures  he  placed  on  the  earth.  But  the  Kam- 
chadals openly  avow  that  they  think  themselves 
much  cleverer  than  Kutka,  who  in  their  eyes  is  so 
stupid  as  to  be  quite  undeserving  of  prayers  or  gra- 
titude. Had  he  been  cleverer,  they  say,  he  would 
have  made  the  world  much  better,  without  so  many 
mountains  and  inaccessible  cliffs,  without  streams 

1  Schoolcraft,  /.  T. ,  iv.  496.    See  Dr.  Brinton's  explanation  of  the 
story  in  his  Myths  of  the  New  World,  pp.  1 70-3. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  n 

of  such  rapidity,  or  such  tempests  of  wind  and  rain. 
In  winter,  if  they  are  climbing  a  mountain,  or  in 
summer,  if  their  canoes  come  to  rapids,  they  will 
vent  loud  curses  on  Kutka  for  having  made  the 
streams  too  strong  for  their  canoes,  or  the  mountains 
so  wearisome  for  their  feet. 

The  Tamanaks  of  the  Orinoco  manifested  a  not 
much  higher  conception  of  a  creator  than  the  Kam- 
chadals.  For  they  ascribed  the  creation  of  the  world 
to  Amalivacca,  who  in  the  course  of  his  work  discussed 
long  with  his  brother  about  the  Orinoco,  having  the 
kind  wish  so  to  make  it  that  ships  might  as  easily 
go  up  its  stream  as  down,  but  being  compelled  to 
abandon  a  task  which  so  far  transcended  his  powers. 
The  Tamanaks  recently  showed  a  cave  where  Ama- 
livacca dwelt  when  he  lived  among  them,  before 
he  took  a  boat  and  sailed  to  the  other  side  of  the 
sea.1 

Not  only,  however,  is  the  idea  of  a  creation  of 
things  quite  common  among  untutored  savages,  but 
there  is  often  a  belief  closely  connected  therewith 
that  in  the  beginning  death  and  sickness  were  un- 
known in  the  world,  but  came  into  it  in  consequence 
of  some  fault  committed  by  its  hitherto  immortal  oc- 
cupants. Such  a  belief,  reported  as  it  is  from  places 
so  widely  sundered  as  Ceylon,  North  America,  and 

1  Humboldt,  Personal  Narrative,  v.  595-7- 


12  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

the  Tongan  Islands,  seems  effectually  to  discounte- 
nance the  suspicion  which  might  otherwise  attach  to 
it  of  collusion  or  mistake  on  the  part  of  our  infor- 
mants. It  is  the  fancy  of  the  Cingalese  cosmogony 
that,  in  the  fifth  period  of  creative  energy,  the  im- 
mortal beings  who  then  inhabited  the  earth  ate  of 
certain  plants,  and  thereby  involved  themselves  in 
darkness  and  mortality.  ' It  was  then  that  they  were 
formed  male  and  female,  and  lost  the  power  of  re- 
turning to  the  heavenly  mansions.'  Liable  as  they 
had  theretofore  been  to  mental  passions,  such  as  envy, 
covetousness,  and  ambition,  they  were  thenceforward 
subjected  to  corporeal  passions  as  well,  and  the  race 
now  inhabiting  the  earth  became  subject  to  all  the  evils 
that  afflict  them.1  According  to  the  saga  of  the  Dog- 
rib  Indians  the  first  man  who  lived  upon  the  earth,  when 
food  and  other  good  things  abounded,  was  Chapewee, 
who  afterwards,  giving  his  children  two  kinds  of  food, 
black  and  white,  forbade  them  to  eat  of  the  former. 
When  he  went  away  for  a  long  journey  to  bring  the 
sun  into  the  world,  his  children  were  obedient  and 
ate  only  of  the  white  fruit,  but  ate  it  all.  But  when 
he  went  away  a  second  time  to  bring  the  moon  into 
the  world,  in  their  hunger  his  children  forgot  his 
prohibition  and  ate  of  the  black  fruit.  So  when 
Chapewee  returned  he  was  very  wroth,  and  declared 

1  Forbes  Leslie,  Early  Races  in  Scotland,  i.  1 77. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  13 

that  thenceforth  the  earth  should  only  produce  bad 
fruit  and  that  men  should  be  subject  to  sickness  and 
death.  Afterwards,  indeed,  when  his  family  lamented 
that  men  should  have  been  made  mortal  for  eating 
the  black  fruit,  Chapewee  granted  that  those  who 
dreamt  certain  dreams  should  have  the  power  of 
curing  sickness  and  so  of  prolonging  human  life ; 
but  that  was  the  extent  to  which  Chapewee  relented.1 
The  Caribs,  Waraues,  and  Arawaks  are  said  to  be- 
lieve in  two  distinct  creators  of  men  and  women  ; 
the  creator  of  the  former  being  superior  and  doing 
neither  good  nor  harm.  After  he  had  created  men 
he  came  on  the  earth  to  see  what  they  were  doing  ; 
but  finding  them  so  bad  that  they  even  attempted 
his  own  life,  he  took  from  them  their  immortality 
and  gave  it  to  skin-casting  creatures  instead.  The 
Aleutian  Islanders  believe  that  the  god  who  made 
their  islands  completed  his  work  by  making  men  to 
inhabit  them  ;  but  these  men  were  immortal  beings, 
for  when  age  came  over  them  they  had  but  to  climb 
a  lofty  mountain  and  plunge  from  thence  into  a  lake, 
in  order  to  come  forth  young  again  and  vigorous.  Then 
it  happened  that  a  mortal  woman,  who  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  draw  upon  herself  celestial  love,  remon- 

1  Klemm,  Cultur-Geschichte,  ii.  155-7,  where  the  beliefs  are  referred 
to.  Franklin's  Second  Journey,  p.  308.  They  are  so  remarkable  as  to 
arouse  suspicion  that  European  influence  has  affected  the  native 
imagination ;  but  the  influence,  if  any,  seems  beyond  the  reach  of 
criticism  in  this  as  in  other  striking  cases  of  analogy. 


14  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

strated  one  day  with  her  lover  for  having,  in  his 
creation  of  the  Aleutian  Islands,  made  so  many 
mountains  and  forgotten  to  supply  the  land  with 
forests.  This  imprudent  criticism  caused  her  bro- 
ther to  be  slain  by  the  angry  god,  and  all  men  after 
him  to  be  subject  to  death.  A  similar  idea  is  con- 
tained in  one  of  the  Tongan  traditions  of  creation  ; 
for  when  the  islands  were  made,  but  before  they  were 
inhabited  by  reasonable  beings,  some  two  hundred 
of  the  lower  gods,  male  and  female  alike,  took  a 
great  boat  to  go  to  see  the  new  land  fished  up  by 
Tangaloa.  So  delighted  were  they  with  it  that  they 
immediately  broke  up  their  big  boat,  intending  to 
make  some  smaller  ones  out  of  it.  But  after  a  few 
days  some  of  them  died  ;  and  one  of  them,  inspired 
by  God,  told  them  that  since  they  had  come  to  Tonga, 
and  breathed  its  air  and  eaten  its  fruits,  they  should 
be  mortal  and  fill  the  world  with  mortals.  Then 
were  they  sorry  that  they  had  broken  their  big  boat, 
and  they  set  to  work  to  make  another,  and  went  to 
sea,  hoping  again  to  reach  Bolotu,  the  heaven  they 
had  left  ;  but  being  unable  to  find  it,  they  returned 
regretfully  to  Tonga. 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  wherever  men  have 
so  far  advanced  in  power  of  thought  as  to  realise 
the  conception  of  antiquity,  the  troubles  of  their 
actual  lot  have  always  tempted  them  to  idealise  the 
past,  and  the  glories  of  the  age  of  gold  have  been 


\ 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  15 

sung  by  the  poets  of  no  particular  land  nor  literature. 
The  Shawnee  Indians  believed  there  was  a  time 
when  they  could  walk  on  the  ocean  or  restore  life 
to  the  dead,  till  they  lost  these  privileges  when  the 
nation  by  its  carelessness  became  divided  into  two.1 
The  Ashantees  trace  all  their  calamities  to  the  folly 
of  their  ancestors,  for  when  the  first  created  black 
men  were  given  their  choice  between  a  large  box 
and  a  piece  of  sealed-up  paper  they  elected  to  take 
the  box,  but  found  therein  only  some  gold,  iron,  and 
other  metals,  whilst  the  white  men  on  opening  the 
paper  found  all  that  was  needful  to  make  them  wise, 
and  have  ever  since  treated  the  blacks  as  their  slaves.2 
It  is  remarkable  that  a  similar  fancy  is  ascribed  to  the 
Navajoes  of  New  Mexico.  For  their  ancestors,  after 
creating  the  sun  and  moon,  made  two  water-jars,  both 
covered  at  the  top,  but  one  gorgeously  painted,  con- 
taining only  rubbish,  the  other  of  plain  earthenware, 
unpainted,  but  containing  flocks  and  herds  and  other 
valuables.  The  Navajoes,  allowed  to  choose  before 
the  Pueblos,  took  the  beautiful  but  worthless  jar ; 
whereupon  the  old  men  said  :  '  Thus  it  will  always 
be  with  the  two  nations.  You,  Navajoes,  will  be  a 
poor  and  wandering  race  ;  destitute  of  the  comforts 
of  life  and  ever  greedy  for  things  on  account  of  their 
outward  show  rather  than  their  intrinsic  value  ;  while 

1  Schoolcraft,  I.  T.,  iv.  255. 

z  Hutton,  Voyage  to  Africa,  p.  320 ;  and  Bosman  in  Pinkerton,  xvi. 
396. 


1 6  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

the  Pueblos  will  enjoy  an  abundance  of  the  good 
things  of  life,  will  occupy  houses,  and  have  plenty  of 
flocks  and  herds.' '  According  to  the  legend  in  the 
Zend-Avesta,  when  Ormuzd  created  Meschia  and 
Meschiana,  the  first  man  and  woman,  he  appointed 
heaven  as  their  dwelling,  under  the  sole  condition  of 
humility  and  obedience  to  the  law  of  pure  thought, 
pure  speech,  and  pure  action.  For  some  time  they 
were  a  blessing  to  one  another  and  lived  happily, 
saying  that  it  was  from  Ormuzd  that  all  things  came — 
the  water  and  earth,  trees  and  animals,  sun,  moon, 
and  stars,  and  all  good  roots  and  fruits  on  the  earth. 
But  at  last  Ahriman  became  master  over  their 
thoughts,  and  they  ascribed  the  creation  of  all  things 
to  him.  So  they  lost  their  happiness  and  their  virtue, 
and  their  souls  were  condemned  to  remain  in  Duzakh 
until  the  resurrection  of  their  bodies,  when  Sosiosch 
should  restore  life  to  the  dead.2 

Among  the  myths,  however,  most  widely  spread 
over  the  world  and  common  to  races  in  all  stages 
of  culture,  from  the  most  barbarous  to  the  most 
civilized,  a  prominent  place  is  due  to  the  legend  of  an 
all-destructive  deluge,  a  legend  which,  arising  as  it 
probably  did  in  many  different  places  from  exagge- 
rated memories  of  purely  local  floods,  must,  in  spite 
of  its  seeming  universality,  remain  a  merely  local 

1  Schoolcraft,  iv.  90. 

2  Klemm,  Cultur-Geschichte,  vii.  368. 


SOME  S At  AGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  17 

myth,  entirely  destitute  of  all  bearing  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  unity  of  the  human  race,  or  of  any  con- 
nection with  the  story  told  in  Genesis.  A  local  flood 
like  that  which  on  the  occasion  of  an  earthquake  in 
1819  was  caused  by  the  sea  flowing  in  at  the  eastern 
mouth  of  the  Indus  and  converting  in  the  space  of  a 
few  hours  a  district  of  2,000  square  miles  into  a  vast 
lagoon,  would  naturally  be  an  event  which  would  re- 
main for  ever  in  the  oral  traditions  of  the  district  and 
tend  to  become  magnified  when  the  event  itself  was 
forgotten.  In  Australia,  which  is  subject  at  certain 
epochs  and  in  certain  localities  to  great  inundations, 
and  which  bears  evidence  of  former  floods  in  what 
are  now  waterless  deserts,  flood  stories  are  said  to 
be  '  exceedingly  common  '  among  all  the  tribes,  one 
tribe  having  a  tradition  that  when  they  returned  to 
their  old  hunting-grounds  on  the  banks  of  a  river, 
after  a  great  flood,  they  found  the  sea  flowing  where 
had  stood  the  other  bank,  nor  any  trace  left  of  its 
former  inhabitants.1 

Or,  again,  it  is  possible  that  alterations  in  the 
level  of  the  sea  and  land  or  the  subsidence  of  a  large 
continent,  such  as  that  of  which  on  geological  as  well 
as  ethnological  grounds  it  has  been  supposed  that  the 
Polynesian  islands  are  the  remains,  may  have  origi- 
nated the  tradition.  Thus,  the  Abbe  Brasseur  de  Bour- 
bourg  imagined  the  submersion  of  a  large  country  in 

1   Trans.  Eth.  Soc.  iii.  233,  234 ;  Oldfield's  Aborigines  of  Awtralia. 
C 


1 8  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BFJJRFS. 

the  Atlantic  to  account  for  the  deluge- myths  of  the 
Central  American  nations.1      Dr.  Brinton,  indeed,  sug- 
gests, that  not  physics,  but  metaphysics  is  the  exciting 
cause  of  beliefs  in  periodical  convulsions  of  the  globe, 
maintaining    that   '  by  nothing  short  of  a    miracle ' 
could  savages  preserve  the  remembrance  of  even  the 
most  terrible  catastrophe  beyond  a  few  generations. 
But  it  is  at  least  as  likely  that  such  remembrance 
should  be   possible  as  that  savages,   starting,  as  he 
supposes,  with  an  idea  of  creation  as  a  reconstruction 
of  existing  elements,  should  have  added  thereto  the 
myth  of  a  universal  catastrophe, '  to  avoid  the  dilemma 
of  a  creation  from  nothing  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
eternity  of  matter  on  the  other.' 2     Perhaps,  however, 
all  such  legends  are  best  regarded  as   pure  nature- 
myths,  to  which  we  may  possibly  find  the  key  in  the 
belief  of  the  Esquimaux,  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  are 
encamped  round  a  large  lake  in  the  sky,  which  when  it 
overflows  causes  rain  upon   earth  and  would  cause  a 
universal  deluge  if  at  any  time  its  floodgates  were 
burst.     The  belief  in  a  contingency  is  never  far  from 
the  assertion  of  its  actuality,  nor  are  the  steps  of  thought 
always  visible  which  separate  the  possible  from  the  real. 
Although  many  of  the  deluge-myths  of  the  world 
ave    doubtless  owed  their  origin  to   the  zeal  with 
vvhich  they  have  been  sought  for  in  the  cause  of  ortho- 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States,  Hi.  112. 
9  Brinton,  pp.  198,  199. 


SOME   SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  19 

dox  theories,  it  is  improbable  that  all  of  them  have 
been  produced  in  this  way.  Dr.  Brinton,  who  has 
examined  the  evidence  with  care,  asserts  that  there 
are  twenty-eight  American  nations  among  whom  a 
distinct  and  well-authenticated  myth  of  the  deluge 
was  found.1 

It  would  be  tedious  to  allude  to  more  than  a  few 
illustrations  of  the  belief  as  it  exists  in  the  world,  or 
to  try  to  distinguish  the  elements  in  them  of  purely 
native  growth  from  the  influences  of  Christian  teach- 
ing. The  Kamchadals  believe  that  the  earth  was 
once  flooded  and  many  persons  drowned,  though  they 
tried  to  save  themselves  in  boats,  those  only  succeed- 
ing who  made  great  rafts  of  trees  and  let  down  stones 
for  anchors,  to  prevent  themselves  from  drifting  out 
to  sea  ;  when  the  waters  subsided  their  rafts  rested  on 
the  mountain-tops.  The  Esquimaux  appealed  to  the 
bones  of  whales  found  on  their  mountains  in  sup- 
port of  their  assertion  that  the  world  had  once  been 
tilted  over  and  all  men  drowned  but  one.  The 
Mandan  Indians,  according  to  Catlin,  celebrated  every 
year  in  pantomime  the  subsidence  of  the  great  waters.2 
It  is  noticeable  that  in  most  savage  legends  of  a 
flood  (and  it  may,  perhaps,  be  taken  as  some  test  of 

1  Brinton,  p.  210. 

2  Catlin,  ii.  127.     For  some  other  deluge-myths  of  a  similar  kind 
see  Bancroft,  iii.  46,  47,  64,  75,  76,  88,  100  ;  Turner's  Polynesia,  p.  249. 
Ellis,  Polynesian  Researches,    i.  386;  Franklin,  i.  113  ;  Sir  G.  Grey, 
Polynesian  Mythology,  61  ;  Brett,  Indian  Tribes  of  Guiana,  pp.  381, 
385,  398,  30.9  ;  Dall,  Alaska,  p.  423. 


20  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

their  authenticity)  there  is  an  entire  absence  of  the 
idea,  so  familiar  to  ourselves,  of  the  flood  having  re- 
sulted from  any  fault  committed  by  the  then  inhabi- 
tants of  the  earth.  At  most  such  an  idea  appears 
in  germ,  as  in  the  tradition  of  the  Society  Islanders, 
that  a  fisherman,  catching  his  hook  in  the  hair  of  the 
great  sea-god  as  he  lay  asleep  in  his  coral  grove,  so 
angered  that  divinity  that  he  caused  the  waters  to 
arise  till  they  flooded  the  very  tops  of  the  mountains 
and  drowned  the  inhabitants,  the  fisherman  and  his 
family  alone  being  suffered  to  escape,  and  thereby 
serving  to  attest  the  genuineness  of  the  tradition. 
So  in  Fiji  the  deluge  was  caused  by  two  grandsons 
of  a  god  killing  his  favourite  bird,  and  instead  of 
being  apologetic  acting  with  insolence  and  fortifying 
the  town  they  lived  in  for  the  purpose  of  defying 
their  grandfather.  The  connection  of  the  catastrophe 
with  human  wickedness  belongs  apparently  to  a  more 
advanced  state  of  thought,  of  which  the  recently  de- 
ciphered Chaldaean  version  may  be  taken  as  a  sample. 
In  it  Hasisadra,  the  sage,  who  with  his  wife  escaped 
the  general  destruction,  tells  Izdubar,  the  giant,  how 
he  built  a  vessel  according  to  the  directions  of  Hea, 
to  save  himself  and  his  family  from  the  universal 
deluge  which  the  gods  sent  upon  the  earth  to  punish 
the  wickedness  of  men  ;  how  the  deluge  lasted  six 
days,  and  on  the  seventh,  when  the  storm  ceased,  the 
vessel  was  stranded  for  seven  days  on  the  mountains 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  21 

of  Nizir ;  and  how  on  the  seventh  day,  he  Hasisadra, 
sent  out  first  a  dove  and  then  a  swallow,  both  of  whom, 
finding  no  resting-place,  returned  to  the  vessel,  till  a 
raven  was  sent  forth  and  did  not  return  ;  and  Hasisadra 
sent  out  the  animals  to  the  four  winds,  and  poured  out 
a  libation  in  thanksgiving,  and  built  an  altar  on  the 
summit  of  the  mountain. 

The  belief  in  a  future  life — a  belief  perhaps  first 
suggested  in  that  rude  state  of  culture  where  the 
dreaming  and  waking  life  are  not  clearly  distinct  but 
are  both  equally  real — appears  to  prevail  so  generally 
among  the  lower  races,  that  it  is  more  difficult  to  find 
instances  where  it  is  not  found  than  instances  where  it 
is.  The  dead  who  visit  the  living  in  their  sleep  are 
not  thought  of  as  dead,  but  as  simply  invisible ;  and 
for  this  reason  all  over  the  globe  it  is  so  common  to 
bury  material  things  in  the  graves  of  the  departed,  to 
serve  them  in  that  other  world  which  is  so  vividly 
conceived  as  but  a  continuation  of  this  one.  The 
Red  Indian  takes  his  horses,  the  Greenlander  his  rein- 
deer, and  both  the  common  requisites  of  earthly 
economy ;  just  as  many  tribes  still  take  their  slaves 
and  their  wives  to  accompany  them  on  that  journey 
which,  as  it  is  imagined  so  distinctly,  is  undertaken 
withoutmystery  to  a  fresh  existence.  Till  lately,  in 
parts  of  Sweden,  a  man's  pipe  and  tobacco-pouch, 
some  money  and  lights,  were  interred  with  him  ;  and 
at  Reichenbach,  in  Germany,  a  man's  umbrella  and 


22  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

goloshes  are  still  placed  in  his  grave.1  In  Russia 
formerly  a  new  pair  of  shoes  was  put  on  the  feet  of 
the  dead  for  the  long  journey  before  him,  a  custom 
also  found  among  the  natives  of  California,  and  the 
Christian  priest  used  to  place  on  a  man's  breast,  as  he 
lay  in  his  coffin,  a  pass,  which,  besides  being  inscribed 
with  his  Christian  name  and  the  dates  of  his  birth 
and  death,  was  also  a  certificate  of  his  baptism,  of 
the  piety  of  his  life,  and  of  his  having  partaken  of  the 
communion  before  his  death.2  These  are  but  survivals 
of  savage  ideas,  which  picture  the  continuation  of 
consciousness  far  more  vividly  than  more  advanced 
religions.  The  Ahts  bury  blankets  with  their  dead, 
that  they  may  not  shiver  in  the  cold  ones  provided  in 
the  land  of  Chayher.  The  Delawar  Indian  used  to 
make  an  opening  at  the  head-end  of  the  coffin,  that 
the  soul  of  the  deceased  might  go  in  and  out  till  it 
had  thoroughly  settled  on  its  future  place  of  residence. 
When  the  Chippewyas  killed  their  aged  relatives  who 
could  hunt  no  more,  the  medicine-song  used  proves 

1  Koehler,  Volksbrauch  im  Voightland,  p.  /\/\/\.    '  Dem  Verstorbenen 
giebt  man  die  Gegenstande  mit  in  das  Grab,  welche  er  im  Leben  am 
liebsten  hatte  :  so  ist  es  geschehen,  dass  man  selbst  Regenschirm  und 
Gummischiihe  mitgab.      (Reichenbach.)  ....   In  Schweden  hat  man 
dem  Todten  Tabakspfeife,   Tabaksbeutel,  Geld  und  Feuerzeug  mit- 
gegeben,  damit  er  nicht  spuke.   ...  In  einem  Grabe  des  Gottesackers 
zu  Elsterberg  wurde  eine  Anzahl  Kupfermiinzen  gefunden.' 

2  This  fact  has  been  denied  in  King's  Greek  Church,  p.  358,  but  it  is 
mentioned  by  most  of  the   earliest  English  travellers  in  Russia  ;  by 
Chancelor,  in  Hackluyfs  Voyages,  i.  283  ;  Jenkinson,  ibid.,  p.  361  ;  and 
Fletcher,  Russe  Commonwealth,  106  ;  as  well  as  by  later  ones. 


SOME.  SAVAGE   MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  23 

the  simple  faith  which  made  the  cruel  deed  an  act  of 
mercy  :  '  The  Lord  of  life  gives  courage.  It  is  true 
all  Indians  know  that  he  loves  us,  and  we  give  over  to 
him  our  father,  that  he  may  feel  himself  young  in 
another  land  and  able  to  hunt.' 

It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  in  many  cases  the 
attention  shown  by  savages  to  their  dead,  by  the  burial 
of  property  which  would  have  been  of  use  to  the  sur- 
vivors, or  by  the  placing  of  food  on  their  graves  at 
periodical  feasts,  arose  rather  from  fear  than  from  any 
kinder  motive,  dictated  by  the  dread  always  felt  by 
the  living  of  the  dead  and  the  wish  to  satisfy  them, 
if  possible,  by  some  peace-offering.  The  Samoyed 
sorcerer,  after  a  funeral,  goes  through  the  ceremony  of 
soothing  the  departed,  that  he  may  not  trouble  the 
survivors  nor  take  their  best  game  ;  a  feeling  still 
further  illustrated  by  their  habit  of  not  taking  the  dead 
out  to  be  buried  by  the  regular  hut  door,  but  by  a 
side-opening,  that  if  possible  they  may  not  find  their 
way  back — a  habit  found  also  in  Greenland  and  in 
many  other  parts  of  the  world.  For  the  fear  of  the 
dead  is  a  universal  sentiment,  common  no  less  to  the 
Abipones,  who  thought  that  sorcerers  could  bring  the 
dead  from  their  graves  to  visit  the  living,  or  to  the 
Kaffirs,  who  think  that  bad  men  alone  live  a  second 
time  and  try  to  kill  the  living  by  night,  than  it  is  to 
the  ignorant  who  still  believe  in  the  blood-sucking 
vampire,  a  belief  which  little  more  than  a  century 


24  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

ago  amounted  to  a  kind  of  epidemic  in  Hungary, 
resulting  in  a  general  disinterment  and  the  burning 
or  staking  of  the  suspected  bodies.  In  the  sepulture, 
therefore,  of  men  with  their  possessions,  it  was  pro- 
bably the  original  thought  that  the  dead  would  be 
less  likely  to  haunt  the  dwellings  of  the  living,  if  they 
were  not  compelled  to  re-seek  upon  earth  those  articles 
of  daily  use  which  they  knew  were  to  be  found  there. 
But  the  savage  belief  in  a  future  is  very  variable  ; 
nor  could  we  expect  to  find  it  much  affected  by  ideas 
of  earthly  morality,  when  such  ideas  themselves 
hardly  appear  to  exist.  At  most  it  is  men  of 
rank  and  courage  who  live  again,  while  cowards 
and  the  commonalty  perish  utterly  ;  generally  there  is 
no  qualification  of  any  kind.  The  Bedouins  have  no 
fixed  belief  at  all,  some  thinking  that  after  death  they 
are  changed  into  screech-owls,  and  others  that  if  a 
camel  is  slain  on  their  graves  they  will  return  to 
life  riding  on  it,  but  otherwise  on  foot.  All  North 
American  Indians  are  said  to  believe  in  the  continual 
life  of  the  soul,  and,  because  they  think  themselves  the 
highest  beings  on  earth,  postulate  a  hereafter  where 
all  their  earthly  longings  will  be  satisfied.1  But  they 
trouble  themselves  little  about  it,  thinking  that  the 
god  they  recognise  as  supreme  is  too  good  to  punish 
them.  Thus  the  Indians  of  Arauco  look  forward  to  an 
eternal  life  in  a  beautiful  land  which  lies  to  the  west, 

1  Klemm,  Cultur-Geschichte,  ii.  165. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  25 

far  over  the  sea,  whither  souls  are  taken  by  the  sailor 
Tempulazy  and  where  no  punishment  is  expected  : 
for  Pillican,  their  god,  the  Lord  of  the  world,  would 
not  inflict  pain.1  The  Tunguz  Lapps  look  on  the  next 
life  as  simply  a  continuation  of  this  one ;  in  it  there 
will  be  no  punishment,  for  here  everyone  is  as  good  as 
he  can  be,  and  the  gods  kill  men  reluctantly,  but  are 
thereby  satisfied.  In  the  Polynesian  future  there  is  a 
similar  absence  of  any  idea  of  retribution.  There  is, 
for  instance,  no  moral  qualification,  but  only  one  of 
rank,  for  Bolotu,  that  happy  land  of  the  dead  which 
lies  far  away  to  the  north-west  of  Tonga,  beyond  the 
reach  of  Tongan  boats  and  greater  than  all  the 
Tongan  islands  put  together,  wherein  abound  beauti- 
ful and  useful  trees,  whose  plucked  fruit  instantly 
grows  again  ;  where  a  delicious  fragrance  fills  the  air, 
and  birds  of  the  loveliest  colours  sit  upon  the  trees  ; 
where  the  woods  swarm  with  pigs,  which  are  immortal 
so  long  as  they  are  not  eaten  by  the  gods.  Nothing, 
indeed,  shows  better  how  independent  is  imagination 
of  race  than  the  great  similarity  of  those  idealised 
earths  which  constitute  the  heavens  of  the  most  distant 
savage  tribes.  The  American  Indian,  who  visits  in 
a  dream  the  unseen  world,  reports  of  it,  in  language 
recalling  that  of  Homer,  that  it  is  a  land  where  there  is 
neither  day  nor  night,  where  the  sun  never  rises  nor 
-sets  ;  where  rain  and  tomahawks  and  arrows  are  never 

1  Stevenson,  Travels  in  South  America,  i.  58. 


26  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

seen  ;  where  pipes  abound  everywhere,  lying  ready  to 
be  smoked  ;  where  the  earth  is  ever  green,  the  trees 
ever  in  leaf;  where  there  is  no  need  of  bearskin  nor  of 
hut ;  where,  if  you  would  travel,  the  rivers  will  take 
your  boat  whithersoever  you  will,  without  the  need  of 
rudder  or  of  paddle.  And  just  as  in  the  Tongan 
Bolotu  the  plucked  fruit  is  replaced,  so  there  the  goat 
voluntarily  offers  its  shoulder  to  the  hungry  man,  in 
full  confidence  that  it  will  grow  again,  and  the  beaver 
for  the  same  reason  makes  a  ready  sacrifice  of  its 
beautiful  tail.1 

So  far  there  is  no  idea  of  a  future  life  as  in  any 
way  affected  by  this  one.  But  such  ideas  do  exist 
among  savages,  and  are  extremely  interesting  as  in- 
dications of  the  growth  of  their  moral  ideas.  The 
quality  most  necessary  for  a  savage  is  pre-eminently 
courage,  and  courage,  therefore,  appearing  as  the  first 
recognised  virtue,  lays  first  claim,  as  such,  to  consi- 
deration hereafter.  The  Brazilians  believed  that  the 
souls  of  the  dead  became  beautiful  birds,  whilst  cowards 
were  turned  into  reptiles.  The  Minnetarrees  held  that 
there  were  two  villages  which  received  the  dead  ;  but 
that  the  cowardly  and  bad  went  to  the  small  one, 
whilst  the  brave  and  good  occupied  the  larger.  Among 
the  Caribs,  who  entertain  the  strange  fancy  that  they 
have  as  many  souls  as  they  feel  nerves  in  their  body, 
but  that  the  chief  of  these  resides  in  the  heart  and 

1  Klemm,  Cultur-Geschkhte,  ii.  1 66. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  27 

goes  to  heaven  at  death,  whilst  the  others  go  to  the 
sea  or  the  woods,  we  meet  again  with  the  reservation  of 
happiness  to  the  souls  of  the  brave.  They  alone  will 
live  merrily,  dancing,  feasting,  and  talking  ;  they  alone 
will  swim  in  the  great  streams,  feeling  no  fatigue  ;  the 
Arawaks  will  either  serve  them  as  slaves  or  wander 
about  in  desert  mountains.  Somewhat  similar  was 
the  faith  of  the  old  Mexicans,  who  divided  the  future 
world  into  three  parts :  the  first,  the  House  of  the 
Sun,  where  the  days  were  spent  in  joyful  attendance 
on  that  luminary,  with  songs  and  games  and  dances, 
by  such  brave  soldiers  as  had  died  in  battle  or  as 
prisoners  had  been  sacrificed  to  the  gods,  and  by 
women  who  had  died  in  giving  children  to  the  com- 
munity ;  the  second,  the  kingdom  of  Tlalocan,  hidden 
among  the  Mexican  mountains,  not  so  bright  as  the 
former,  but  cool  and  pleasant,  and  filled  with  unfailing 
pumpkins  and  tomatoes,  reserved  for  priests  and  for 
children  sacrificed  to  Tlaloc  and  for  all  persons  killed 
by  lightning,  by  drowning,  or  by  sickness  ;  the  third, 
the  kingdom  of  Mictlauteuctli,  reserved  for  all  other 
persons,  but  with  nothing  said  of  any  punishment 
there  awaiting  them.  One  of  the  beliefs  in  Greenland 
is,  that  heaven  is  situate  in  the  sky  or  the  moon,  and 
that  the  journey  thither  is  so  easy  that  a  soul  may 
reach  it  the  same  evening  that  it  quits  the  body,  and 
play  at  ball  and  dance  with  those  other  departed 
souls  who  are  encamped  round  the  great  lake  and 


28  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

shine  in  heaven  as  the  northern  lights.  But  others 
say  that  it  is  only  witches  and  bad  people  who  join 
the  heavenly  lights,  where  they  not  only  enjoy  no 
rest,  owing  to  the  rapid  revolutions  of  the  sky,  but 
are  so  plagued  with  ravens  that  they  cannot  keep 
them  from  settling  in  their  hair.  They  believe  that 
heaven  lies  under  the  earth  or  sea,  where  dwells 
Torngarsuk,  the  Creator,  with  his  mother,  in  perpetual 
summer  and  beautiful  sunshine.  There  the  water  is 
good  and  there  is  no  night,  and  there  are  plenty  of 
birds,  and  fish,  and  seals,  and  reindeer,  all  to  be  caught 
at  pleasure,  or  ready  cooking  in  a  great  kettle  ;  but 
these  delights  are  reserved  for  persons  who  have  done 
great  deeds  and  worked  steadfastly,  who  have  caught 
many  whales  or  seals,  who  have  been  drowned  at  sea, 
or  have  died  in  childbirth.  These  persons  alone  may . 
hope  to  join  the  great  company  and  feast  on  incon- 
sumable seals.  Even  then  they  must  slide  for  five 
days  down  the  blood-stained  precipice  ;  and  unhappy 
they  to  whom  the  journey  falls  in  stormy  weather  or 
in  winter,  for  then  they  may  suffer  that  other  death 
of  total  extinction,  especially  if  their  survivors  disturb 
them  by  their  noise  or  affect  them  injuriously  by  the 
food  they  eat.  The  Kamchadal  belief  is  very  curious, 
as  showing  how  the  idea  of  compensation  in  the  next 
world  for  the  evils  of  this — an  idea  already  apparent 
in  the  Mexican  and  Greenland  beliefs — may  have 
served  to  bridge  over  the  conception  of  a  mere  con- 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  29 

tinuance  of  life  for  the  soul,  and  the  conception  of 
an  actual  retribution  awaiting  it  They  imagine 
that  the  dead  come  to  a  place  under  the  earth,  where 
Haetsch  dwells,  son  of  Kutka  the  Creator,  and  the  first 
man  who  died  on  earth,  now  Lord  of  the  under-world 
and  general  receiver  of  souls.  To  those  who  come 
dressed  in  fine  furs  and  drive  fat  dogs  before  their 
sledges,  he  gives  instead  old  ragged  furs  and  lean  dogs  ; 
but  to  those  who  have  known  poverty  on  earth  he  gives 
new  furs  and  beautiful  dogs  and  also  a  better  place  to 
live  in  than  the  others.  The  dead  live  again  as  on 
earth  ;  their  wives  are  restored  to  them,  they  build 
ostrogs  again,  and  catch  fish,  and  dance  and  sing ; 
there  is  less  storm  and  snow  than  above  ground,  and 
more  people  ;  indeed,  abundance  of  everything. 

It  is  easy  to  conceive  how,  when  once  the  idea 
had  been  reached  that  the  brave  deserved  compen- 
sation in  the  next  world  for  their  earthly  courage,  the 
poor  for  their  earthly  wretchedness,  or  the  sick  for 
their  earthly  sufferings,  and  all  men  for  the  misfor- 
tune of  premature  death,  it  should  also  be  inferred, 
as  soon  as  any  criterion  between  goodness  and  bad- 
ness more  refined  than  the  mere  difference  between 
courage  and  cowardice  had  been  attained,  that  the 
good  should  have  some  advantage  over  the  bad,  and 
from  such  an  inference  to  a  complete  theory  of  retri- 
bution and  punishment  of  the  bad  the  logical  steps 
seem  fairly  obvious.  Few  things,  indeed,  are  more 


30  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

remarkable  among  the  lower  races  than  the  general 
absence  of  the  ideas  we  associate  with  hell.1  At 
most  the  idea  of  future  punishment  is  negative,  the 
lives  of  slaves  and  cowards  terminating  in  a  total  cessa- 
tion of  consciousness,  as  opposed  to  its  continuance 
for  warriors  and  chiefs.  Still,  the  idea  of  difficulty 
in  attaining  the  blessed  abodes,  such  as  that  above 
noticed  as  prevalent  in  Greenland — an  idea,  as  Mr. 
Tylor  suggests,  probably  connected  with  the  sun's  pas- 
sage across  the  sky  to  the  west,  where  the  happy  land 
is  so  generally  figured  to  lie — is  very  common,  and 
from  such  an  idea  it  is  natural  to  connect  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  journey  to  Paradise  with  the  destruction  of 
those  whose  presence  in  it  would  mar  its  blessedness. 
The  trial  of  merit,  varing  with  experiences  of 
physical  geography,  generally  lies  either  in  the  pas- 
sage of  a  river  or  gulf  by  a  narrow  bridge,  or  in  the 
climbing  of  a  steep  mountain.  The  Choctaws,  for 
instance,  believe  that  the  dead  have  to  pass  a  long 
and  slippery  pine-log,  across  a  deep  and  rapid  river, 
on  the  other  side  of  which  stand  six  persons,  who  pelt 
new-comers  with  stones  and  cause  the  bad  ones  to 
fall  in.2  In  Khond  theology  the  judge  of  the  dead 

1  See  Brinton,  p.  242.  '  Nowhere  (in  the  New  World)  was  any  well- 
defined  doctrine  that  moral  turpitude  was  judged  and  punished  in  the 
next  world.     No  contrast  is  discoverable  between  a  place  of  torments 
and  a  realm  of  joy  ;  at  the  worst  but  a  negative  castigation  awaited  the 
liar,  the  coward,  and  the  niggard.' 

2  For  other  instances  of  the  myth   of  the  heaven -bridge,  and  its 
•wide  range,  see  Mr.  Tylor's  Early  History  of  Mankind,  p.  348. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  31 

resides  beyond  the  sea,  on  the  smooth  and  slippery 
Leaping  Rock,  below  which  flows  a  black  unfathom- 
able river ;  and  the  souls  of  men  take  bold  leaps  to 
reach  the  rock,  those  that  fail  contracting  a  deformity 
which  is  transferred  to  the  next  soul  animated  on 
earth.  The  Blackfoot  Indians,  on  the  other  hand, 
believe  that  departed  souls  have  to  climb  a  steep 
mountain,  from  the  summit  of  which  is  seen  a  great 
plain,  with  new  tents  and  swarms  of  game ;  that  the 
dwellers  in  that  happy  plain  advance  to  them  and 
welcome  those  who  have  led  a  good  life,  but  reject 
the  bad — those  who  have  soiled  their  hands  in  the 
blood  of  their  countrymen — and  throw  them  headlong 
from  the  mountain  ;  whilst  women  who  have  been 
guilty  of  infanticide  never  reach  the  mountain  at  all, 
but  hover  round  the  seat  of  their  crimes  with  branches 
of  trees  tied  to  their  legs.  The  Fijians  think  that 
even  the  brave  have  some  difficulty  in  reaching  the 
judgment-seat  of  Ndengei,  and  they  provide  the  dead 
with  war-clubs  to  resist  Sama  and  his  host,  who  will 
dispute  their  passage.  But  celibacy  is  in  their  eyes 
apparently  the  only  offence  which  calls  for  peremptory 
and  hopeless  punishment.  Unmarried  Fijians  are 
dashed  to  pieces  by  Nangananga  as  in  vain  attempts 
to  steal  round  to  a  certain  reef  they  are  driven  ashore 
by  the  rising  tide.1  The  Norwegian  Lapps  consider 

1  Williams,  Fiji,  i.  244. 


32  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

that  abstinence  from  stealing,  lying,  and  quarrelling 
entitles  a  man  to  compensation  hereafter.  Such 
receive  after  death  a  new  body,  and  live  with  the 
higher  gods  in  Saiwo,  and  indulge  in  hunting  and 
magic,  brandy-drinking  and  smoking,  to  a  far 
higher  degree  than  was  possible  on  earth.  Wicked 
men,  perjurers,  and  thieves  go  to  the  place  of  the  bad 
spirits,  to  Gerre-Mubben-Aimo.1  The  idea  of  com- 
pensation of  the  good  leads  naturally  to  the  idea  of 
retribution  for  the  bad  ;  and  even  among  the  Guinea 
Coast  negroes  we  find  future  inducements  to  the  practice 
of  such  moral  duties  as  they  recognise.  For  they  are 
wont  to  make  for  themselves  idols,  called  Sumanes 
whose  favour  they  endeavour  to  secure  by  abstinence 
from  certain  kinds  of  foods,  believing  that  after  death 
those  who  have  been  constant  in  their  vows  of  ab- 
stinence and  in  offerings  to  the  Sumanes  will  come 
to  a  large  inland  river,  where  a  god  inquires  of 
everyone  how  he  has  lived  his  days  on  earth,  and  those 
who  have  not  kept  their  vows  are  drowned  and  de- 
stroyed for  ever.  The  inland-dwelling  negroes  declare 
that  at  this  river  dwells  a  powerful  god  in  a  beautiful 
house,  which,  though  always  exposed,  is  never  touched 
by  rain.  He  knows  all  past  and  present  things;  he  can 
send  any  kind  of  weather,  he  can  heal  sicknesses  and 
work  miracles.  Before  him  must  all  the  dead  appear ; 

1  Klemm,  Cultur-Geschichte,  iii.  71-77. 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  33 

the  good  to  receive  a  happy  and  peaceful  life,  the  bad 
to  be  killed  for  ever  by  the  large  wooden  club  which 
hangs  before  his  door.  Lastly,  it  may  be  noticed  that 
negro  tribes  believe  that  death  will  take  them  to  the 
land  of  the  European  and  give  them  the  white  man's 
skin  ;  but,  as  they  generally  paint  their  devil  white, 
we  cannot  be  sure  that  such  a  change  is  not  rather 
dreaded  as  a  punishment  for  the  bad  than  regarded 
as  a  change  for  the  better. 

So  far  it  appears  that  savages  have  developed  from 
the  promptings  and  imaginings  of  their  own  minds 
some  idea  of  a  Creator  and  of  a  soul,  as  well  as  of  a 
future  to  some  extent  dependent  on  earthly  antece- 
dents. It  is  of  course  difficult  to  judge  how  far  the 
missionaries  or  travellers,  who  have  mainly  supplied 
the  only  evidence  we  have,  may  have  clearly  under- 
stood, or  how  much  they  may  have  unintentionally 
imported  into,  beliefs  they  represent  as  purely  indi- 
genous. In  many  cases  a  remarkable  similarity  may 
lead  us  to  suspect  that  the  belief  is  not  native,  but 
implanted  at  some  time  by  Christian  or  other  influence, 
though  traces  of  such  influence  may  be  absolutely 
wanting  or  at  least  not  proved.  There  can,  for  in- 
stance, be  little  doubt  whence  Sissa,  the  devil  of  the 
Guinea  Coast  negroes,  derived  the  pair  of  horns  and 
long  tail  with  which  he  is  usually  depicted.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  cannot  lay  down  any  rigid  canon 
for  the  imaginations  of  men,  nor  say  that  if  one  belief 

D 


34  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

is  identical  with  another  a  thousand  miles  off  it  must 
therefore  have  been  borrowed  and  cannot  be  of  in- 
dependent growth.  Indeed,  when  we  reflect  on  the 
limited  nature  of  the  mental  faculties  of  savages,  on 
the  limited  range  of  objects  for  their  minds  to  work 
upon,  on  their  childlike  fear  of  the  dark  and  the  unseen, 
and  their  still  more  childlike  delight  in  the  indulgence 
of  their  fancy,  so  far  from  there  being  anything  strange 
in  the  analogies  of  thought  between  distant  tribes,  the 
strangeness  would  rather  be  if  such  analogies  did  not 
exist.  It  is  probable  that  children  tell  one  another 
much  the  same  stories  in  London  as  they  do  at  the 
Antipodes,  and  there  is  no  more  reason  to  be  surprised 
at  rinding  much  the  same  theologies  current  in  Africa 
as  in  Australia  or  Ceylon.  The  same  sun,  which  shines 
on  men's  bodies  alike,  shines  on  their  minds  alike  too  ; 
and  myths,  like  dreams,  with  all  the  apparent  field 
for  variety  in  their  formation,  are  really  subject  to 
the  closest  laws  of  uniformity  and  sameness. 

We  have,  however,  to  be  careful,  in  applying  terms 
of  our  own  religious  phraseology  to  savage  thoughts 
and  fancies,  to  discriminate  between  the  higher  and 
lower  meaning  they  bear,  and  always  to  employ  them 
in  the  lower.  The  belief,  already  noticed,  of  the 
Kamchadals  in  Kutka  well  illustrates  how  different 
is  the  meaning  involved  in  the  Kamchadal  theory  of 
creation  from  that  involved  in  Genesis  or  the  Zend- 
Avesta.  The  same  is  true  of  the  belief  in  a  soul  and 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  35 

its  future  life ;  for  the  savage,  intensely  vivid  as  is 
his  future  beyond  the  grave,  seldom  doubts  for  an 
instant  but  that  he  will  share  it  with  all  the  rest, 
not  only  of  the  animate,  but  of  the  inanimate  world. 
For  that  reason  he  buries  axes,  and  clothes,  and  food 
with  the  dead,  to  be  of  service  in  the  next  world. 
The  Fijians  used  to  show  'the  souls  of  men  and 
women,  beasts  and  plants,  of  stocks  and  stones, 
canoes  and  houses,  and  of  all  the  utensils  of  this 
frail  world,  swimming,  or  rather  tumbling  one  over 
the  other,'  as  they  were  borne  by  a  swift  stream 
at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  hole  to  the  regions  of  immor- 
tality.1 So  of  the  animate  world.  The  Kamchadal 
believes  that  the  smallest  fly  that  breathes  will  rise 
after  death  to  live  again  in  the  under-world.2  If  the 
Laplander  expects  that  all  honest  people  will  re-meet 
in  Aimo,  he  as  fully  expects  that  bears  and  wolves 
will  meet  there  too.  The  Greenlander  believes  that 
all  the  heavenly  bodies  were  once  Greenlanders,  or 
animals,  and  that  they  shine  with  a  pale  or  red  light 
according  to  the  food  they  ate  on  earth.  He  also 
believes  that  when  all  things  now  living  on  the  earth 
are  dead,  and  the  earth  cleansed  from  their  blood  by 
a  great  water-flood ;  when  the  purified  dust  is  consoli- 

1  Mariner,  ii.  137. 

2  Klemm,    Cultur-Geschichte,   ii.    315.       '  Jedes  Thier,    auch  die 
kleinste  Fliege,  ersteht  sofort  nach  ihrem  Tode  und  lebt  unter   der 
Erde.' 


36  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

dated  again  by  a  great  wind,  and  a  fairer  earth,  all 
plain  and  no  cliffs,  is  substituted  for  the  present  one ; 
when  Priksoma,  he  who  is  above,  breathes  on  men 
that  they  may  live  again — then  animals  will  also  rise 
again  and  be  in  great  abundance.  The  old  inhabitants 
of  Anahuac  and  Egypt  believed  equally  that  animals 
would  share  the  next  world  with  them  ;  and,  if  the 
universality  of  an  opinion  were  any  reason  for  its 
credibility,  few  opinions  could  claim  a  better  title  to 
acceptance  than  this  one.  So  confident  were  the 
Swedish  Lapps  of  the  future  life  of  animals,  that 
whenever  they  killed  one  in  sacrifice  they  buried  the 
bones  in  a  box,  that  the  gods  might  more  easily  restore 
it  to  life.1  There  is  really  nothing  very  unnatural  in 
this  idea,  when  we  remember  that  in  the  lower  stages 
of  culture  man  not  only  admits  the  equality  of 
brutes  with '  himself,  but  even  acknowledges  their 
superiority  by  actual  worship  of  them.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  how  it  is  that  savages  who  see 
deities  in  everything,  in  the  motionless  mountain  or 
stone  no  less  than  in  the  rushing  river  or  wind,  should 
see  in  animals  deities  of  extraordinary  power,  whose 
capacities  infinitely  transcend  their  own.  Recognising 
as  they  do  in  the  tiger  a  strength,  in  the  deer  a  speed, 


1  Klemm,  Cultur-Geschichte,  iii.83.  '  Endlich  wurden  die  besonderter 
Theile  nebst  den  Knochen  in  der  Kiste  begraben.  Man  glaubte,  das 
Opferthier  werde  von  den  Gottern  wieder  belebt  und  in  den  Saiwo 
versetzt.' 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  37 

in  the  monkey  a  cunning,  all  superior  to  their  own, 
they  naturally  conceive  of  them  as  deities  whom  above 
all  others  it  is  expedient  to  humour  by  adoration  and 
sacrifice.  Some  negro  tribes,  holding  that  all  ani- 
mals enshrine  a  spirit,  which  may  injure  or  benefit 
themselves,  will  refrain  from  eating  certain  animals, 
otherwise  perfectly  edible,  and  endeavour  to  propi- 
tiate them  by  lifelong  attention.  Thus  some  regularly 
offer  food  at  the  earth-houses  of  termites,  or  fatten 
sheep  and  goats,  for  a  purely  temporary  and  perfectly 
spiritual  advantage.  It  is  on  account  of  their  divine 
and  immortal  nature  that  the  well-known  custom 
of  apologising  to  animals  killed  in  the  chase  is  so 
general  among  savages.  It  is  generally  a  deprecation 
of  any  post-mortem  vindictiveness  on  the  part  of  the 
animal's  ghost.  The  natives  of  Greenland  refrain 
from  breaking  seals'  heads  or  throwing  them  into  the 
sea  ;  but  they  pile  them  in  a  heap  before  their  hut 
door,  that  the  souls  of  the  seals  may  not  be  angry 
and  in  their  spite  frighten  living  seals  away.  The 
Yuracares  of  Bolivia  were  careful  to  put  small  fish- 
bones carefully  aside,  lest  fish  should  disappear  ;  and 
other  Indian  tribes  would  keep  the  bones  of  beavers 
and  sables  from  their  dogs  for  a  year  and  then  bury 
them,  lest  the  spirits  of  those  animals  should  take 
offence  and  no  more  of  them  be  killed  or  trapped.1 
The  Lapps  are  so  afraid  that  the  soul  of  the  animal 

1  Dall,  Alaska,  p.  89. 


38  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

whose  flesh  they  have  killed  may  take  its  revenge  as 
a  disembodied  spirit,  that  before  eating  it  they  not  only 
entreat  pardon  for  its  death,  but  perform  the  ceremony 
of  treating  it  first  with  nuts  or  other  delicacies,  that 
it  may  be  led  to  believe  it  is  present  as  a  guest — not 
to  be  eaten,  but  to  eat.  Another  Kamchadal  fancy 
indicates  how  savages,  whose  theory  of  cause  and 
effect  appears  to  be  that  it  is  quite  sufficient  for  two 
things  to  be  connected  contemporaneously  for  one  to 
be  cause  and  the  other  effect,  are  led  more  especially 
to  see  deities  in  birds,  from  the  observation  that 
changes  in  weather  are  associated  with  their  arrival 
and  departure.  Since  to  be  associated  with  a  thing 
is  to  be  caused  by  it,  migratory  birds  take  away 
or  bring  the  summer  with  them.  For  the  reason 
that  the  spring  and  the  wagtails  return  together  the 
Kamchadal  thanks  the  wagtail  for  bringing  back  the 
spring,  and  it  is  probably  from  a  similar  confusion 
of  thought  that  he  thanks  the  ravens  and  crows  for 
fine  weather. 

Whether,  in  conclusion,  it  be  true  or  not  that  the 
more  civilised  nations  of  the  earth  have  gone  through 
stages  of  growth  in  which  their  religious  conceptions 
resembled  those  of  contemporary  savage  tribes,  one 
result  at  least  is  clear,  that  the  actual  standpoint  of 
the  savage  with  regard  to  the  great  mysteries  of 
existence  is  removed  toto  ccelo  from  that  of  Christian, 
or  Mahometan,  or  Parsee.  The  Creator  he  believes 


SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS.  39 

in  is  not  so  much  the  cause  of  all  things  as  the  maker 
of  some  things,  because  seemingly  the  first  father  of 
men  needed  the  wherewithal  to  exercise  his  energies. 
The  savage's  soul  is  simply  his  breath  or  ghost, 
which  indeed  will  survive  his  body,  but  which  may 
lose  its  identity  in  the  body  of  an  animal  or  thing, 
destined  like  himself  to  live  again.  He  conceives  of 
himself  generally  as  not  mortal,  but  not  therefore 
as  immortal.  His  future  is  but  a  repetition  of  his 
present,  with  the  same  base  wants  and  pursuits,  only 
with  a  greater  possibility  of  indulgence,  and  not 
necessarily  indefinite  in  duration.  It  is,  perhaps, 
some  compensation  for  this,  that,  if  it  does  not  hold 
out  great  hopes,  its  prospect  serves  to  deprive  death 
of  its  terror,  and  brightens  the  sufferings  of  the  pass- 
ing day.  To  the  native  American  death  is  said  to 
be  rather  an  event  of  gladness  than  of  terror,  bringing 
him  rest  or  enjoyment  after  his  period  of  toil ;  nor 
does  he  fear  to  go  to  a  land  '  which  all  his  life  long 
he  has  heard  abounds  in  rewards  without  punish- 
ments.' 1  No  thought  of  possibly  flying  from  present 
evils  to  find  immeasurably  greater  ones  awaiting  him 
after  death  would  ever  occur  to  a  savage,  and  he  will 
even  kill  himself  or  cheerfully  submit  to  be  killed 
by  his  friends,  in  order  to  realise  the  sooner  the 
difference  imagined  between  earth  and  heaven.  The 

1  Schoolcraft,  /.  7'.,  v.  91,  403;  ii.  68. 


40  SOME  SAVAGE  MYTHS  AND  BELIEFS. 

powers  of  evil  which  vex  him  here  will  be  absent 
hereafter,  and  the  Spirit  he  recognises  as  supreme  in 
his  hierarchy  of  invisible  powers  is  either  conceived 
as  too  beneficent  to  punish,  or,  if  he  punishes  at  all, 
as  likely  to  punish  at  once  and  for  ever. 


II. 

SA  VAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

IN  the  same  way  as  a  child  is  insensibly  educated  by 
the  very  efforts  of  an  adult  to  place  himself  on  its 
level,  so  any  tribe  of  savages  is  to  some  extent 
modified  by  the  time  that  a  stranger  has  fitted  him- 
self, by  long  residence  among  them  and  the  acquisi- 
tion of  their  language,  to  tell  us  anything  about  them. 
This  primary  difficulty,  amounting  theoretically  to  in- 
superability, might  alone  suffice  to  invalidate  most 
of  the  received  evidence  which  asserts  or  denies 
concerning  savages  anything  whatsoever  in  broad 
general  terms.  But  when  the  evidence  concerns 
religious  ideas  another  difficulty  is  superadded,  and 
one  which  appertains  to  the  subject  of  religion  alone 
— the  reserve,  that  is,  (attested  by  too  many  travellers 
to  need  specific  references,)  with  which  savages  guard 
their  stock  of  fundamental  beliefs.  The  delicacy 
manifested  by  the  most  skilled  of  the  Iowa  Indian 
tribe  as  to  communicating  fully  or  freely  on  religious 


42  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  Pit  AVER. 

subjects,  lest  they  should  bring  on  themselves  or  their 
nation  some  great  calamity,1  indicates  the  feeling  that 
probably  underlies  such  religious  reticence.  If  a 
savage  dare  not  pronounce  his  own  name,  much  less 
the  names  of  his  dead,  it  is  a  fair  matter  of  wonder 
that  he  should  ever  have  become  so  free  with  the  names 
and  attributes  of  his  divinities  as  to  have  rendered  it 
possible  for  such  systematic  representations  of  his 
theology  as  are  current  to  appear  before  the  world. 

The  evidence  afforded  by  ethnology  as  to  the 
nature  of  prayer  among  savages  is  slighter  than  on 
most  subjects  relating  to  them,  partly  from  the 
natural  disregard  paid  to  such  matters  by  most 
Christian  missionaries,  partly  from  the  secret  and 
hidden  character  of  prayer,  which  alone  would  make 
its  study  impossible  ;  but  there  is  abundant  evidence 
to  show  that  religious^supplication  of  a  certain  kind 
enters  more  deeply  than  might  be  supposed  into  the 
daily  lives  of  the  lower  races  of  mankind.  Says  Ellis 
of  the  Society  Islanders  :  '  Religious  rites  were  con- 
nected with  almost  every  act  of  their  lives.  An  ubu  or 
prayer  was  offered  before  they  ate  their  food,  planted 
their  gardens,  built  their  houses,  launched  their  canoes, 
cast  their  nets,  and  commenced  or  concluded  a 
journey.'2  In  the  Fijian  Islands  business  transactions 
were  commonly  terminated  by  a  short  wish  or  prayer ; 

1  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  iii.  268. 
-  Ellis,  Polynesian  Researches,  i.  350. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  43 

and  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  the  priest  would  pray 
before  a  battle  that  the  gods  he  addressed  would 
prove  themselves  stronger  than  the  gods  of  his  foes, 
promising  them  hecatombs  of  victims  in  the  event  of 
victory.  But  the  mere  fact  of  such  prayers  is  of 
less  interest  than  the  actual  formulas  used  ;  these, 
however,  have  more  rarely  been  thought  worth 
recording. 

According  to  a  recent  African  traveller  it  is  a 
daily  prayer  in  some  parts  of  Guinea :  '  O  God,  I 
know  thee  not,  but  thou  knowest  me :  thy  aid  is 
necessary  to  me.'  Or  again:  'O  God,  help  us;  we 
do  not  know  whether  we  shall  live  to-morrow:  we  are 
in  thy  hand.' l  A  Bushman,  being  asked  how  he 
prayed  to  Cagn  (recognised  by  his  tribe  as  the  first 
being  and  creator  of  all  things),  answered,  in  a  low, 
imploring  tone :  '  O  Cagn,  O  Cagn,  are  we  not 
your  children?  do  you  not  see  our  hunger?  Give  us 
food ; '  '  and,'  he  added, '  he  gives  us  both  hands  full.' 2 
It  further  appears  that  the  Bushmen  address  petitions 
to  the  sun,  to  the  moon,  and  to  the  stars ; 3  and  the 
Kamchadals,  who  have  been  made  to  dispute  with 
them  the  lowest  rank  of  humanity,  had  a  rude  form  of 
prayer  to  the  Storm-god,  which  was  uttered  by  a 
small  child,  sent  naked  round  the  ostrog  with  a  shell 

1  Reade,  Savage  Africa,  p.  536. 

2  Cape  Monthly  Magazine,  July  1874. 

*  Bleek,  Bushman  Folklore,  pp.  15,  18. 


44  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

!n  its  uplifted  hand :  '  Gsanlga,  sit  down  and  cease  to 
storm ;  the  mussel  is  accustomed  to  salt,  not  to  sweet 
water;  you  make  me  too  wet,  and  from  the  wet  I 
must  freeze.  I  have  no  clothes ;  see  how  I  freeze.' l 
In  a  certain  African  tribe  it  is  said  to  be  usual  for 
the  men  to  go  every  morning  to  a  river,  and  there, 
after  splashing  water  in  their  faces,  or  throwing  sand 
over  their  heads,  after  clasping  and  loosing  their  hands 
and  whispering  softly  the  words  Eksuvais,  to  pray: 
4  Give  me  to-day  rice  and  yams,  gold  and  aggry- 
beads,  slaves,  riches,  and  health ;  make  me  active  and 
strong.' 

The  Zulus  of  Africa  and  the  Khonds  of  India 
supply  good  illustrations  of  savage  prayer.  The  head 
man  of  a  Zulu  village,  at  the  sacrifice  of  a  bullock  to 
the  spirits  of  the  dead,  thus  addresses  them  in  prayer : 
'  I  pray  for  cattle  that  they  may  fill  this  pen.  I  pray 
for  corn  that  many  people  may  come  to  this  village 
of  yours  and  make  a  noise  and  glorify  you.  I  also 
ask  for  children,  that  this  village  may  have  a  large 
population  and  that  your  name  may  never  come  to  an 
end.'3  The  Khonds,  also,  at  the  sacrifice  of  a  bullock 
express  their  wishes  with  rather  more  emphasis: 
'  Let  our  herds  be  so  numerous  that  they  cannot  be 
housed ;  let  children  so  abound  that  care  of  them  shall 

1  Steller,  Kamschatka,  p.  280. 

2  Waitz,  Anthropologie  der  Naturvolker,  ii.  170. 

3  Callaway,  Religious  System  oftheAmazulu,  pt.  ii.  182. 


SAVAGE  MODES   OF  PRAYER.  45 

overcome  their  parents,  as  shall  be  seen  by  their  burnt 
hands.'  Or,  again,  they  will  ask  that  their  swine 
may  so  abound  that  their  fields  shall  require  no 
other  ploughs  than  their  '  rooting  snouts ; '  that  their 
poultry  may  be  so  numerous  as  to  hide  the  thatch 
of  their  houses;  that  neither  fish,  frog,  nor  worm 
shall  be  able  to  live  in  their  drinking  ponds  beneath 
the  trampling  feet  of  their  multitude  of  cattle.1 

These  may  be  taken  as  fair  samples  of  primitive 
prayer;  but  it  is  only  just,  as  against  the  inference 
that  a  savage's  prayers  have  reference  solely  to  the 
good  and  evil  things  of  this  world,  to  notice  indications 
of  higher  sentiments.  The  Yebus  of  Africa,  with  faces 
bowed  to  the  earth,  are  said  commonly  to  pray,  not 
only  for  preservation  from  sickness  and  death,  but 
for  the  gifts  of  happiness  and  wisdom?  The  Tahitian 
priest,  praying  to  the  god  by  whom  it  was  supposed 
that  a  dead  man's  spirit  had  been  required,  that  the 
sins  of  the  latter,  especially  that  one  for  which  he  had 
lost  his  life,  might  be  buried  in  a  hole  then  dug 
in  the  ground  and  not  attach  to  the  survivors,  points 
to  the  occasional  presence  of  a  moral  motive  in  prayer ; 
though  even  here  the  deprecation  of  further  anger  on 
the  part  of  the  gods  appears  the  principal  object  of 
concern. 3  So  little  indeed  do  thoughts  of  morality 
or  of  a  future  state  enter  as  factors  into  savage  prayer, 

1  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethnology,  ii.  437-444. 
1  Waitz,  ii.  169.  *  Ellis,  i.  402. 


46  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

and  so  little  does  any  ethical  distinction  appear  in  the 
savage  conception  of  supernatural  powers,  that  not 
unfrequently  supplication  is  directed  to  the  attainment 
of  ends  morally  the  reverse  of  desirable.  Like  the 
Roman  tradesman  praying  to  Mercury  to  aid  him  in 
cheating,  the  Nootka  warrior  would  entreat  his  god 
that  he  might  find  his  foes  asleep,  and  so  kill  a  great 
many  of  them.1  But  perhaps  the  best  illustration  of 
the  perverted  use  of  prayer  is  one  employed  by  a  clan  of 
the  Hervey  Islanders  when  engaged  on  a  thieving  and 
murdering  expedition,  and  uttered  as  near  as  possible 
to  the  dwelling  of  the  person  about  to  be  robbed.  It 
is  apparently  addressed  to  Kongo,  or  Oro,  the  great 
Polynesian  god  of  war,  and  is  thus  translated  in  Mr. 
Gill's  '  Myths  and  Songs  of  the  South  Pacific ' :— 2 

We  are  on  a  thieving  expedition  ; 
Be  close  to  our  left  side  to  give  aid. 

Let  all  be  wrapped  in  sleep  ; 
Be  as  a  lofty  cocoa-nut  tree  to  support  us. 

The  god  is  then  entreated  to  cause  all  things  to  sleep  ; 
the  owner  of  the  house  is  entreated  to  sleep  on,  like- 
wise the  threshold  of  the  house,  the  insects,  beetles, 
earwigs,  and  ants  that  inhabit  it,  the  central  post,  the 
several  rafters  and  beams  that  support  it ;  and  after 
the  thatch  of  the  house  has  been  asked  to  sleep  on, 
the  prayer  thus  concludes  : — 

1  Brinton,  Myths  of  the  New  World,  p.  297.  *  Page  150. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  47 

The  first  of  its  inmates  unluckily  awaking 
Put  soundly  to  sleep  again. 
If  the  Divinity  so  please,  man's  spirit  must  yield. 
O  Kongo,  grant  thou  complete  success. 

If,  however,  we  may  hope  to  find  anywhere  indi- 
cations of  a  higher  purpose  in  prayer  than  the  attain- 
ment of  merely  temporary  or  personal  needs,  we  must 
seek  it  (nor  is  the  search  entirely  vain)  in  those  rites 
of  religion  which,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  levels 
of  culture,  are  customary  upon  the  entrance  of  a  fresh 
life  on  the  stage  of  this  world's  trials  and  sorrows. 
The  popular  saying,  that  the  cries  of  a  child  at  its 
christening  are  the  cries  of  the  devil  going  out  of 
it,  expresses  identically  the  same  belief  which  still 
prompts  our  savage  contemporaries  to  drive  evil 
spirits  from  a  new-born  child  by  rites  of  mysterious 
spiritual  efficacy  ;  and  it  is  probably  to  the  indigenous 
prevalence  of  baptism  among  many  savage  tribes  that 
some  Catholic  missionaries,  complacently  identifying 
conversion  with  immersion,  have  owed  the  success  of 
their  efforts.  It  would  at  least  be  interesting  to  know 
whether  baptism  was  a  native  African  rite  at  the  time 
that  the  Capuchin  Merolla  baptized  with  his  own 
hands  13,000  negroes,  and  Padre  Jerom  da  Monte- 
farchio  his  100,000  in  the  space  of  twenty  years.1 
Mungo  Park  gives  an  account  of  a  purely  heathen 
festival  held  about  a  week  after  the  birth  of  a  child, 

1  Pinkerton,  xvi.  304. 


48  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

at  which  a  priest,  taking  the  latter  in  his  arms,  would 
pray,  soliciting  repeatedly  the  blessing  of  God  on  the 
child  and  all  the  company.  And  Bosnian  tells  of  a 
priest  binding  ropes,  corals,  and  other  things  round 
the  limbs  of  a  new-born  child,  and  exorcising  the 
spirits  of  sickness  and  evil.1 

It  cannot,  however,  be  proved  with  certainty  that 
such  rites  are  of  native  growth  wherever  they  have 
been  found,  though  similar  feelings  of  natural  impurity, 
of  natural  anxiety,  may  well  have  contributed  to 
make  them  common  all  the  world  over.  With  this 
reservation,  let  it  suffice  to  recall  some  illustrations 
drawn  from  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  world. 
The  most  touching  form  of  the  custom  is  told  of  a 
tribe  in  the  Fiji  Islands,  where  the  priest,  presented 
by  the  relations  with  food  with  which  to  notify 
the  event  to  the  gods  before  the  birth-festival, 
would  thus  petition  the  latter  :  '  This  is  the  food  of 
the  little  child  :  take  knowledge  of  it,  ye  gods.  Be  kind 
to  him.  Do  not  pelt  him  or  spit  upon  him,  or  seize 
him,  but  let  him  live  to  plant  sugar-canes.' 2  In  New 
Zealand,  the  tohunga,  or  priest,  dipping  a  green  branch 
into  a  calabash  of  water,  sprinkled  the  child  therewith 
and  made  incantations  according  to  its  sex  ; 3  whilst  in 
the  Hervey  Islands,  where  the  child  was  immersed  in 
a  taro  leaf  filled  with  water,  the  ceremony  was  in- 

1  Pinkerton,  xvi.  388,  874.  2  Williams,  Fiji,  p.  176. 

*  Dieffenbach,  p.  28. 


SAVAGE  MODES   OF  PRAYER.  49 

timately  connected  with  their  system  of  tribes  and 
dedication  for  future  sacrifice.1  Crossing  over  to 
America,  we  find  among  the  Indian  tribes  of  Guiana 
the  native  priest  dancing  about  an  infant  and  dashing 
water  over  it,  finishing  the  ceremony  by  passing  his 
hands  over  its  limbs,  muttering  all  the  while  incanta- 
tions and  charms.2  In  some  North  American  tribes, 
water  having  been  boiled  with  a  certain  sweet-scented 
root,  and  some  of  it  having  been  first  thrown  into  the 
fire  and  the  rest  distributed  to  the  company  by  the 
oldest  woman  present,  the  latter  would  then  offer  a 
short  prayer  to  the  Master  of  Life,  on  behalf  of  the 
child,  that  its  life  might  be  spared  and  that  it  might 
grow ;  and  if,  at  the  festival  held  to  commemorate 
the  child's  first  slain  animal,  one  of  the  chief  persons 
present  would  entreat  the  Great  Spirit  to  be  kind  to 
the  lad  and  let  him  grow  to  be  a  great  hunter,  in  war 
to  take  many  scalps  and  not  to  behave  like  an  old 
woman,  it  cannot  be  said  that  such  a  prayer  was 
purely  selfish  in  its  aim  or  confined  solely  to  present 
necessities.3 

Although,  however,  it  is  impossible  to  dissociate 
baptismal  rites  so  rude  as  these  from  a  belief  in  magic, 
the  idea  of  water  as  conferring  moral  as  well  as  physi- 
cal purity  appears  to  have  been  attained  by  some  of 
the  more  advanced  heathen  tribes.  The  rite  of  bap- 

1  Gill,  p.  36.  2  Brett,  Indian  Tribes  of  Guiana,  p.  370. 

1  Harmon,  Journal  of  Voyages,  &c.,  p.  345. 

E 


50  SAVAGE  MODES   OF  PRAYER. 

tism,  says  Dr.  Brinton,  was  of  immemorial  antiquity 
among  the  Cherokees,  Aztecs,  Mayas,  and  Peruvians : 
the  use  of  water  as  symbolical  of  spiritual  cleansing 
clearly  appearing,  for  instance,  in  the  prayer  of  the 
Peruvian  Indian,  who  after  confessing  his  guilt  would 
bathe  in  the  river  and  say  :  '  O  river,  receive  the 
sins  I  have  this  day  confessed  unto  the  sun,  carry 
them  down  to  the  sea,  and  let  them  never  more 
appear.' '  It  has  often  been  told,  on  the  original 
authority  of  Sahagun,  how  the  Mexican  nurse,  after 
bathing  the  new-born  child,  would  bid  it  approach  its 
mother,  the  goddess  of  water ;  praying  at  the  same 
time  to  her  that  she  would  receive  it  and  wash  it, 
would  take  away  its  inherited  impurity,  make  it 
good  and  clean,  and  instil  into  it  good  habits  and 
manners.2 

The  mere  enunciation  of  a  wish  often  amounts 
among  savages  to  a  complete  prayer,  it  being  con- 
ceived that  the  expression  of  desire  is  of  more 
moment  than  the  manner  of  such  expression  ;  such  a 
conception  still  surviving  among  ourselves  at  certain 
wishing  towers,  wishing  gates,  or  on  the  occurrence  of 
certain  natural  phenomena.  In  Fiji  it  was  common 
to  shout  aloud,  after  drinking  a  toast,  the  name  of 
some  object  of  desire,  and  this  was  equivalent  to  a 

1  Brinton,  p.  126. 

1  Bancroft,   iii.  370-3.     For  baptismal  rites  in  Northern  Europe 
before  Christianity,  see  Mallet,  Northern  Antiquities,  p.  205. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  51 

prayer  for  whatever  it  might  be — for  food,  wealth,  a 
fair  wind,  or  even  for  the  gratification  of  cannibal 
gluttony.  Franklin  tells  how  some  Indians,  disap- 
pointed in  the  chase,  set  themselves  to  beat  a  large 
tambourine  and  sing  an  address  to  the  Great  Spirit, 
praying  for  relief,  their  prayer  consisting  solely  of 
three  words  constantly  repeated  ; l  the  tambourine  pro- 
bably being  employed  for  the  same  purpose  that  the 
Sioux  Indians  kept  a  whistle  in  the  mouth  of  one  of 
their  gods,  namely,  to  make  their  invocation  audible. 
The  Ahts,  praying  to  the  moon,  sometimes  say  no 
more  than  teech,  teech,  that  is,  Health  or  Life ;  and  it 
is  curious  that  the  rude  savages  of  Brazil  exclaim  teh, 
teh,  to  the  same  luminary.'2  The  Sioux  would  often 
say,  '  Spirits  of  the  dead,  have  mercy  ! '  adding  thereto 
a  notification  of  their  wishes,  whether  for  good 
health,  good  luck  in  hunting,  or  anything  else.3 
The  Zulus,  however,  sometimes  carry  this  principle  of 
brevity  furthest,  for  sometimes  in  their  prayers  to  the 
spirits  of  their  dead  they  simply  say,  '  Ye  people  of 
our  house,'  '  the  suppliant  taking  it  for  granted  that 
the  Amatongo  will  know  what  he  wants ; '  though 
generally  their  addresses  to  their  ancestors  are  of  a 
much  more  orthodox  length  than  this.4  When  we 
consider  how  large  a  place  the  spirits  of  the  dead  fill  in 

1  Franklin,  Journey  to  the  Polar  Sea,  p.  255. 

2  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  ii.  299. 

*  Scboolcraft,  Indicun  Tribes,  iii.  237. 
4  Callaway,  i.  33. 

E    2 


52  SAVAGE  MODES   OF  PRAYER. 

the  savage's  spirit- world  it  appears  possible  that  many 
of  the  prayers  and  sacrifices,  said  to  be  offered  to  the 
Great  Spirit  or  unknown  divinities,  are  really  addressed 
to  the  all-controlling,  ever-present  spirits  of  the 
departed. 

If  we  may  believe  the  testimony  of  a  great  many 
travellers  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  the  case  of  the 
Yezidis,  who  to  the  recognition  of  a  supreme  being 
are  said  to  join  actual  worship  of  the  chief  power  of 
evil,  represents  no  exceptional  phase  of  human 
thought.  Yet  even  the  Yezidis,  according  to  Dr. 
Latham,  are  said  to  be  improperly  called  Devil- 
worshippers,  since  they  only  try  to  conciliate  Satan, 
speak  of  him  with  respect  or  not  at  all,  avoid  his 
name  in  all  their  oaths,  and  are  pained  if  they  hear 
people  make  a  light  use  of  it.1  In  Equatorial  Africa 
it  is  said  that  whilst  Mburri,  the  spirit  of  evil,  is 
worshipped  piously  as  a  tyrant  to  be  appeased,  it  is 
not  considered  necessary  to  pray  to  Njambi,  the  good 
spirit.2  Harmon  says  distinctly  of  all  the  different 
Indian  tribes  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  that  they 
pray  and  make  frequent  and  costly  sacrifices  to  the 
bad  spirit  for  delivery  from  evils  they  feel  or  fear, 
but  that  they  seldom  pray  to  the  supreme  good  spirit, 
to  whom  they  ascribe  every  perfection,  and  whom 
they  consider  too  benevolent  ever  to  inflict  evil  on 

1  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethnology,  ii.  187. 

2  Reade,  Savage  Africa,  p.  250. 


SAVAGE  MODES   OF  PAAYER.  53 

his  creatures.1  There  is,  indeed,  little  doubt  that,  if  a 
certain  amount  of  evidence  suffices  the  requirements 
of  proof,  we  must  yield  consent  to  the  fact,  in  itself 
neither  incredible  nor  unintelligible,  that  many  savage 
tribes,  recognising  and  believing  in  a  good  and 
powerful  spirit,  make  that  very  goodness  a  reason  for 
their  neglect  of  him,  and  address  their  petitions 
instead  to  the  mercy  of  that  other  spirit  to  whose 
power  for  evil  they  conceive  the  world  to  lie  subject.2 
There  is,  however,  much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  the 
view,  that  the  mind  in  its  primitive  state  is  uncon- 
scious of  this  moral  dualism  in  the  spirit-world,  attri- 
buting rather  (in  perfect  accordance  with  the  analogy 
of  human  relationships)  good  and  bad  things  alike  to 
the  agency  of  the  same  beings,  according  as  transitory 
impulses  affect  them. 

Thus,  according  to  Castren,  an  antagonism 
between  absolute  good  and  absolute  evil  finds  no 
place  among  the  Samoyeds.  They  have  no  extreme 
divinities  corresponding  in  their  attributes  to  Ahriman 
and  Ormuzd.  'The  human  temper  is  the  divine 
temper  also,  good  and  bad  mixed.' 3  Mburri,  who, 
according  to  one  writer,  is  the  evil  spirit  in  Equatorial 
Africa,  is,  according  to  another,  the  good  spirit,  or  at 

1  Harmon,  Journal  of  Voyages,  p.  363. 

*  Lord  Kames,  History  of  Man,  vol.  iv.,  asserts  this  of  many  tribes, 
the  Tahitians,  Hottentots,  and.others.     See  also  pp.  234,  238,  297. 

*  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethnology,  i.  480. 


54  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

least  the  less  wicked  of  the  two,  both  the  good  and 
bad  receiving  worship,  and  being  endowed  with  much 
the  same  powers.1  The  Beetjuans,  venerating  Morimo 
as  the  source  of  all  good  and  evil  that  happened  to 
them,  were  not  agreed  as  to  whether  he  was  entirely 
a  beneficent  or  a  malevolent  being  ;  and,  if  they 
thanked  him  for  benefits,  they  never  hesitated  to 
curse  him  for  ills  or  for  wishes  unfulfilled.2  '  To  the 
very  same  image,'  says  Bosman  of  the  negroes,  '  they 
at  one  time  make  offerings  to  God  and  at  another  to 
the  devil,  so  that  one  image  serves  them  in  the 
capacity  of  god  and  devil.'  It  was  untrue,  he  de- 
clares, that  the  negroes  prayed  and  made  offerings 
to  the  devil,  though  some  of  them  would  try  to 
appease  a  devil  by  leaving  thousands  of  pots  of 
victuals  standing  ever  ready  for  his  gratification  ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  devil  was  annually  banished  from 
their  towns  with  great  ceremony,  being  hunted  away 
with  dismal  cries,  and  his  spirit  pelted  with  wood  and 
stones.3 

The  evidence,  again,  in  this  respect  concerning  the 
aborigines  of  America  is  important.  The  Winneba- 
goes  are  said  to  have  had  a  tradition  that  soon  after 
the  creation  a  bad  spirit  appeared  on  the  scene,  whose 
attempts  to  vie  with  the  products  of  the  Good  Spirit 

1  Cf.  Reade,  Savage  Africa,  p.  250,  and  Du  Chaillu's  Explorations, 
pp.  202-3. 

2  Lichtenstein,  ii.  332 ;  Callaway,  i«  1 1 1 
1  Pinkerton,  xvi.  402,  530. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PXAYER.  55 

resulted  in  making  a  negro  in  failure  of  an  Indian, 
a  grizzly  bear  in  failure  of  a  black  one,  and  snakes 
which  were  endowed  with  venom ;  he  also  it  was  who 
made  all  the  worthless  trees,  thistles,  and  weeds,  who 
tempted  Indians  to  lie,  murder,  and  steal,  and  who 
receives  bad  Indians  when  they  die.  The  suspicion, 
however,  of  Christian  influence  among  this  tribe 
makes  the  tradition  of  little  value  to  the  argument. 
Turning  to  other  evidence,  amid  Schoolcrafc's  reite- 
rated statements  of  the  original  dualism  of  Indian 
theology,  whereby  the  Indian  was  careful  '  to  guard 
his  good  and  merciful  God  from  all  evil  acts  and 
intentions,  by  attributing  the  whole  catalogue  of  evil 
deeds  among  the  sons  of  men  to  the  Great  Bad  Spirit 
of  his  theology,'  we  yet  find  this  admission,  that  '  it  is 
impossible  to  witness  closely  the  rites  and  ceremonies 
which  the  tribes  practise  in  their  sacred  and  ceremonial 
societies  without  perceiving  that  there  is  no  very  accu- 
rate or  uniform  discrimination  between  tlic  powers  of 
the  two  antagonistical  deities' '  Mr.  Pond,  who  resided 
with  the  Sioux  Indians  for  eighteen  years  and  had 
every  opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with  such 
matters,  declares  that  it  was  '  next  to  impossible  to 
penetrate'  into  the  subject  of  their  divinities;  but  he 

1  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  iv.  635-7.  The  admission  quoted 
seems  to  cancel  the  statements  repeated  clearly  and  positively  in  i.  16, 
*7>  32>  3S>  38,  and  iii.  60,  of  a  dualism  as  decided  as  that  between 
Ahriman  and  Ormuzd.  In  i.  32  it  is  said  that  the  first  notice  of  such 
a  doctrine  occurs  in  Charlevoix,  f '<>iv;v  to  North  .  \incrica  hi  1721. 


56  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

was  never  able  to  discover  '  the  least  degree  of  evi- 
dence that  they  divide  the  gods  into  classes  of  good 
and  evil,'  nor  did  he  believe  that  they  ever  distin- 
guished the  Great  Spirit  from  other  divinities  'till 
they  learnt  to  do  so  from  intercourse  with  the 
whites ; '  for  they  had  no  chants,  feasts,  dances,  nor 
sacrificial  rites  which  had  any  reference  to  such  a 
being,  or  which,  if  they  had,  were  not  of  recent  origin.1 
Of  the  same  people  says  Mr.  Prescott,  a  man  related 
to  and  resident  among  them  many  years:  'As  to 
their  belief  in  evil  spirits,  they  do  not  understand  the 
difference  between  a  great  good  spirit  and  a  great 
evil  spirit,  as  we  do.  The  idea  the  Indians  have  is 
that  a  spirit  can  be  good  if  necessary,  and  do  evil  if  it 
thinks  fit'  They  'know  very  little  about  whether  the 
Great  Spirit  has  anything  to  do  with  their  affairs, 
present  or  future.'  Their  idea  of  the  Great  Spirit  is 
of  the  vaguest  possible  kind,  since  they  lack  entirely 
any  conception  of  his  power,  or  of  the  mode  of,  or  of 
a  reason  for,  man's  creation.  The  Great  Spirit  they 
believe  made  everything  but  the  wild  rice  and  the 
thunder ;  and  they  have  been  known  to  accuse  their 
deity  of  badness  in  sending  storms  to  cause  them 
misery. 2  In  the  same  way  the  Comanches  of  Texas 
neither  worship  the  evil  spirit  nor  are  aware  of  his 
existence,  'attributing  everything  to  arise  from  the 

1  Schoolcraft,  iv.  642-3.  2  Ibid.,  ii.  195,  197  ;  iii.  231. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  57 

Great  Spirit,  whether  of  good  or  evil!  !  Had  the 
ancient  Jews  been  described  by  Greek  travellers  in- 
stead of  by  themselves,  we  may  fairly  suspect  that 
they  would  have  been  introduced  to  posterity  as  a 
people,  consciously  theistic  indeed,  but  at  the  same 
time  as  addicted,  in  most  of  their  rites,  to  demonolatry 
and  the  propitiation  of  imaginary  evil  beings.  The 
true  view  would  seem  to  be  that  the  theology  of  the 
lower  races  does  not  admit  of  that  preciseness  of 
terminology,  of  that  clear  distinction  of  qualities,  of 
that  systematic  marshalling  of  powers,  which  has 
been  so  often  predicated  of  it,  but  that  in  its  growth 
it  undergoes  a  period  of  flux  and  change  similar  to 
that  which  may  be  seen  to  occur  in  the  evolution  of 
the  lowest  forms  of  physical  life  into  more  determi- 
nate types  of  being. 

The  Sioux  Indians,  abusing  their  Great  Spirit  for 
sending  them  storms,  or  the  Kamschadals  cursing 
Kutka  for  having  created  their  mountains  so  high  and 
their  streams  so  rapid,  expose  a  state  of  thought  re- 
lating to  the  gods  which  is  most  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  the  savage's  habitual  dread  of  them,  still  more 
with  a  high  conception  of  them,  but  which  is  too 
well  authenticated  to  admit  of  doubt.  Franklin  saw 
a  Cree  hunter  tie  offerings  (a  cotton  handkerchief, 
looking-glass,  tin  pin,  some  ribbon  and  tobacco)  to 

1  Schoolcraft,  ii.  131. 


58  SA  VA  GE  MODES  OF  PR  A  YER. 

the  value  of  twenty  skins  round  an  image  of  the  god 
Kepoochikan,  at  the  same  time  praying  to  him  in  a 
rapid  monotonous  tone  to  be  propitious,  explaining  to 
him  the  value  of  his  presents,  and  strongly  cautioning 
him  against  ingratitude.1  If  all  the  prayers  and  pre- 
sents made  to  their  god  by  the  Tahitians  to  save  their 
chiefs  from  dying  proved  in  vain,  his  image  was  in- 
exorably banished  from  the  temple  and  destroyed.2 
The  Ostiaks  of  Siberia,  if  things  went  badly  with 
them,  would  pull  down  from  their  place  of  honour  in 
the  hut  and  in  every  way  maltreat  the  idols  they 
generally  honoured  so  exceedingly ;  the  idols  whose 
mouths  were  always  so  diligently  smeared  with  fish- 
fat,  and  within  whose  reach  a  supply  of  snuff  ever  lay 
ready.3  The  Chinese  are  said  to  do  the  same  by 
their  household  gods,  if  for  a  long  time  they  are  deaf 
to  their  prayers,  and  so  do  the  Cinghalese  ; 4  so  that 
the  practice  is  more  than  an  impulsive  manifestation  of 
merely  local  feeling.  That  such  feelings  occasionally 
crop  out  in  civilised  Catholic  countries  is  matter  of 
more  surprise;  but  it  is  an  authentic  historical  fact 
that  the  good  people  of  Castelbranco,  in  Portugal, 
were  once  so  angry  with  St.  Anthony  for  letting  the 
Spaniards  plunder  their  town,  contrary  to  his  agree- 
ment, that  they  broke  many  of  his  statues  in  pieces,, 
and,  taking  the  head  off  one  they  specially  revered,. 

1  Franklin,  i.  114-15.  2  Ellis,  i.  350. 

s  Klemm,  iii.  I2O.  4  Kames,  History  of  Man,  iv.  327. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  5$ 

substituted  for  it  the  head  of  St.  Francis.1  Neapolitan 
fishermen  are  said  to  this  day  to  throw  their  saints 
overboard  if  they  do  not  help  them  in  a  storm;  and 
the  images  of  the  Virgin  or  of  St.  Januarius,  worn  in 
Neapolitan  caps,  are  in  danger  of  being  trodden  under 
foot  and  destroyed,  if  adverse  contingencies  arise.  The 
latter  saint,  indeed,  once  received  during  a  famine 
very  clear  intimation,  that,  unless  corn  came  by  a  cer- 
tain time,  he  would  forfeit  his  saintship.2 

It  is  perhaps  a  refinement  of  thought  when  a 
present  becomes  an  advisable  accompaniment  to  a 
simple  petition  ;  but  the  principle  of  exchange  once 
entered  into,  the  relations  between  man  and  the 
supernatural  lead  logically  from  the  offering  of  fruits 
and  flowers  to  the  sacrifice  of  animals  and  of  men. 
Some  Algonkin  Indians,  mistaking  once  a  missionary 
for  a  god,  and  petitioning  his  mercy,  begged  him  to  let 
the  earth  yield  them  corn,  the  rivers  fish,  and  to  prevent 
sickness  from  slaying  or  hunger  from  tormenting  them. 
Their  request  they  backed  with  the  offer  of  a  pipe  ;  * 
and  in  this  ridiculous  incident  the  whole  of  the  savage's 
philosophy  of  sacrifice  is  contained.  Prescott,  coming 
with  some  Indians  to  a  lake  they  were  to  cross,  saw 
his  companions  light  their  pipes  and  smoke  by  way 
of  invoking  the  winds  to  be  calm.4  And  the  Hurons 
offered  a  similar  prayer  with  tobacco  to  a  local  god, 

1  Kames,  History  of  Afar,  iv.  321.  2  Klemm,  vi.  423. 

3  Brinton,  p.  29^.  [4  Schoolcraft,  iii.  226. 


60  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PR  AVER. 

saying  :  '  Oki,  thou  who  livest  on  this  spot,  we  offer 
thee  tobacco.  Help  us,  save  us  from  shipwreck. 
Defend  us  from  our  enemies.  Give  us  good  trade, 
and  bring  us  safe  back  to  our  villages.'  !  In  the 
island  of  Tanna,  the  village  priest,  addressing  the 
spirits  of  departed  chiefs  (thought  to  preside  over  the 
growth  of  yams  and  fruits),  after  the  first-fruits  of 
vegetation  had  been  deposited  on  a  stone,  on  the 
branch  of  a  tree,  or  on  a  rude  altar  of  sticks,  would 
pray  :  '  Compassionate  father,  here  is  some  food  ;  eat 
it,  be  kind  to  us  on  account  of  it ; '  and  in  Samoa,  too, 
a  libation  of  ava  at  the  evening  meal  was  the  offering, 
in  return  for  which  the  father  of  a  family  would  beg 
of  the  gods  health  and  prosperity,  productiveness  for 
his  plantations,  and  for  his  tribe  generally  a  strong 
and  large  population  for  war.2  In  Fiji,  again,  when 
the  chief  priests  and  leading  men  assembled  to 
discuss  public  affairs  in  the  yaquona  or  kava  circle, 
the  chief  herald,  as  the  water  was  poured  into  the 
kava,  after  naming  the  gods  for  whom  the  libation  was 
prepared,  would  say :  '  Be  gracious,  ye  lords,  the  gods, 
that  the  rain  may  cease,  and  the  sun  shine  forth  ; ' 
and  again  when  the  potion  was  ready  :  '  Let  the  gods 
be  of  a  gracious  mind,  and  send  a  wind  from  the 
east.' 3 

1  Brinton,  p.  297. 

2  Turner,  Nineteen  Years  in  Polynesia,  pp.  88,  200,  239. 

3  Williams,  p.  144. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  61 

It  is  a  somewhat  obvious  inference,  if  presents 
like  these  fail  to  obtain  corresponding  results,  that 
the  spirit  addressed  is  not  satisfied,  and  that  he 
requires  a  greater  value  in  exchange  for  the  blessings 
at  his  disposal.  The  crowning  petition,  therefore,  of 
disappointed  and  despairing  humanity  is,  by  an 
irrefragable  chain  of  reasoning,  the  sacrifice  of  a 
human  life,  or,  if  this  fails,  of  many  lives.  Long  and 
frequent  were  the  prayers  of  the  Tahitians  to  the 
gods  when  their  chiefs  were  ill,  for,  under  the  idea 
that  '  the  gods  were  always  influenced  by  the  same 
motives  as  themselves,  they  imagined  that  the  efficacy 
of  their  prayers  would  be  in  exact  proportion  to  the 
value  of  the  offerings  with  which  they  were  accom- 
panied.' Hence,  if  the  disease  grew  violent,  the  fruits 
of  whole  plantain  fields  or  more  than  a  hundred  pigs 
would  be  hurried  to  the  marae ;  nay,  not  unfre- 
quently  a  number  of  men  with  ropes  round  their 
necks  would  be  led  to  the  altar  and  presented  to  the 
idol,  with  prayers  that  the  mere  sight  of  them  might 
satisfy  his  wrath.1  It  does  not  appear  that  on  such 
occasions  they  were  actually  slain,  but  we  seem  here 
rather  to  see  the  first  step  towards  human  sacrifice  than 
merely  a  survival  of  it,  for  the  obtaining  of  this  particu- 
lar wish.  The  process  is  naturally  from  the  sacrifice  of 
the  least  possible  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  greatest  possible, 

>  Ellis,  i.  349. 


62  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

though  after  that  point  has  been  reached  there  may 
well  be  a  tendency,  varying  with  the  character  of  a 
tribe,  to  fall  back  upon  make-believe,  curtailed  losses. 
The  Mandan  Indians,  Catlin  repeats,  always  sacrificed 
the  best  of  its  kind  to  the  Great  Spirit,  the  favourite 
horse,  the  best  arrow,  or  the  best  piece  of  buffalo ; ' 
so  that  the  sacrifice  of  their  fingers  was  more  probably 
a  form  of  incipient  human  sacrifice  than,  as  it  some- 
times is,  a  relic  of  a  more  complete  self-surrender. 
Both  the  Aztecs  and  the  Mayas,  with  all  the  cruel 
forms  of  sacrifice  that  disgraced  their  civilization, 
retained  traditions  of  a  time  when  the  gods  were  con- 
tented with  the  milder  offerings  of  fruits  and  flowers ; 
and  in  Yucatan,  where  hundreds  of  young  girls  were 
sacrificed  in  the  dark  but  sacred  pit  of  Chichen,  there 
were  recollections  of  a  time  when  one  victim  sufficed 
the  demands  of  the  spirit-world.  And  in  this  instance 
may  be  seen  how  human  sacrifice,  besides  being  the 
highest  gift  man  could  offer  to  his  god  or  gods,  was 
in  yet  another  sense  a  mode  of  prayer  ;  for  whilst  the 
victims  stood  round  the  pit,  whilst  the  incense  burnt 
on  the  altar  and  in  the  braziers,  the  officiating  priest 
explained  to  the  messengers  from  earth  '  the  things  for 
which  they  were  to  implore  the  gods  into  whose  pre- 
sence they  were  about  to  be  introduced.' 2  So  also  the 
priests  of  Mexico  would  exhort  the  deputation  of  eigh- 

1  Catlin,  i.  133;  ii.  247.     Cf.  Schoolcraft,  iii.  243. 

2  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  6°^:.,  ii.  705. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  63 

teen  souls  they  sent  to  the  sun  to  remember  the  mission 
for  which  they  were  sent,  the  people's  wants  they  were 
to  make  known,  the  favours  they  were  to  ask  for  their 
countrymen.1 

Less  obviously  connected  with  prayer  than  sacri- 
fice is  dancing,  a  custom  which  the  civilized  world 
has  long  since  ceased  to  regard  as  in  any  sense 
connected  with  religion,  but  which  among  savages, 
besides  being  a  natural  expression  of  joy  in  life,  of 
thankfulness  for  sun  or  shower,  is  not  unfrequently  a 
mode  of  prayer,  a  means  employed  for  the  attainment 
of  desire.  This  at  least  seems  the  case  with  those 
imitative  dances  or  pantomimes  in  which  with  mar- 
vellous exactitude  the  savage  all  the  world  over  acts 
the  part  of  the  animals  he  pursues  in  the  chase.  The 
national  dance  of  the  Kamschadals  consists  in  the 
imitation  of  the  manners  and  motions  of  seals  and 
bears,  varying  from  the  gentlest  movement  of  their 
bodies  to  the  most  violent  agitation  of  their  thighs 
and  knees,  accompanied  with  singing  and  stamping 
in  time ; 2  and  it  is  remarkable  that  in  Vancouver's 
Island  also  there  is  a  seal  dance,  for  which  the 
natives,  stripping  themselves  naked,  enter  the  water, 
regardless  of  the  cold  of  the  night,  and  emerge 
*  dragging  their  bodies  along  the  sand  like  seals,'  then 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races,   &c. ,  iii.  428 ;  Burton,  Mission  to  Gelele, 
ii.  18-25. 

2  Klemm,  ii.  216,  from  Langsdorf,  ii.  261. 


64  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

enter  the  houses  and  crawl  about  the  fires,  and  finally 
jump  up  and  dance  about.1 

But  although  it  is  intelligible  that  such  facility 
and  perfection  of  beast-acting  as,  for  instance,  enabled 
the  Dog-rib  Indians  to  approach  and  kill  the  rein- 
deer, acquired  originally  by  the  necessities  of  the 
chase,  should  be  perpetuated  as  a  religious  ceremony 
to  keep  up  a  habit  of  actual  importance  to  existence, 
there  are  cases  to  which  this  explanation  would  hardly 
apply,  as,  for  example,  to  the  African  gorilla  dance, 
which  has  been  so  vividly  described  by  a  recent  eye- 
witness, and  which,  he  says,  '  was  a  religious  festival 
held  on  the  eve  of  an  enterprise,'  the  eve,  namely,  of 
a  gorilla  hunt.  An  African  dancing  to  a  drum  and 
harp  imitated  closely  all  the  attitudes  and  movements 
of  the  gorilla,  being  joined  in  the  chorus  by  all  the 
rest  present.  '  Now  he  would  be  seated  on  the 
ground,  his  legs  apart,  his  hands  resting  on  his  knees, 
his  head  drooping,  and  in  his  face  the  vacant  expres- 
sion of  the  brute.  Sometimes  he  folded  his  arms  on 
his  forehead.  Suddenly  he  would  raise  his  head  with 
prone  ears  and  flaming  eyes,'  till  in  the  last  act  he 
represented  the  gorilla  attacked  and  killed.2  But, 
unless  gorillas  are  ever  killed  by  so  clever  an  imita- 

1  Sproat,  p.  66.     The  Juangs  of  Bengal  practise  a  bear  dance,   a 
pigeon  dance,  a  pig  dance,  a  tortoise  dance,  a  quail  dance,  a  vulture 
dance.  Dalton,  Desc.  Eth.  of  Bengal,  p.  156  ;  and  stzNewEncyc.  Brit. 
for  similar  cases  :  article,  '  Dance.' 

2  Reade,  Savage  Africa,  p.  200. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  65 

tion  of  themselves  that  they  really  mistake  their 
African  neighbours  for  their  own  brothers,  the  gorilla 
dance  must,  by  a  phenomenon  of  thought  not  without 
analogy,  be  a  mode  of  prayer  for  obtaining  a  desired 
result ;  the  same  fetishistic  law  of  thought  prevailing 
that  is  traceable  in  the  idea  that  by  pouring  water  on 
a  stone  you  can  bring  rain  on  the  earth,  or  that  you 
can  injure  your  enemy  by  an  injury  to  his  effigy. 

It  may  be,  however,  that  pantomimic  dances  were 
employed  originally  as  a  clearer  expression  than 
mere  words  of  the  suppliant's  wishes,  the  acting  of  a 
hunt  or  battle  being  equivalent  to  a  petition  for 
favour  and  success  in  the  same,  and  the  unseen  deities 
addressed  being  not  unnaturally  conceived  as  more 
likely  to  see  the  bodily  movements  than  to  hear  the 
feeble  voice  of  the  petitioner.  The  analogy  of  the 
various  tongues,  prevalent  among  birds,  beasts,  and 
men,  might  well  suggest  to  a  savage  the  possibility 
of  the  spiritual  world  being  unavoidably  deaf  to  his 
utterances  from  mere  inability  to  comprehend  them  ; 
whilst  dealings  with  the  nearest  tribe  might  make  it 
natural  for  him  to  resort  to  the  use  of  signs  and 
symbols  as  the  least  mistakable  vehicle  for  his  mean- 
ing. The  Ahts,  retiring  to  the  solitude  of  the  woods, 
and  there  standing  naked  with  outstretched  arms  be- 
fore the  moon,  employ  set  words  and  gestures  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  of  the  object  they  desire.  Thus  in 
praying  for  salmon  the  suppliant  rubs  the  back  of  his 

F 


66  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

hands,  and,  looking  upwards,  says,  '  Many  salmon, 
many  salmon  ; '  in  asking  for  deer  he  carefully  rubs 
both  his  eyes,  for  geese  the  back  of  his  shoulders,  for 
bears  his  sides  and  legs,  uttering  in  a  sing-song  way  the 
usual  formula.  The  meaning  of  all  these  rubbings  is 
obscure  ;  but  it  has  been  suggested  that  the  rubbing 
of  the  hands  indicates  a  wish  that  the  hand  may 
have  the  requisite  steadiness  for  throwing  the  salmon 
spear ;  the  rubbing  of  the  eyes,  a  prayer,  that  they 
may  be  opened  to  discern  deer  in  the  forest.1 
Among  a  Californian  tribe  it  was  usual,  preparatory 
to  the  chase,  to  resort  to  a  certain  stake-inclosure 
and  there  to  pray  to  the  god's  image  for  success,  by 
mimicry  of  the  actions  of  the  hunt,  as  by  leaping  and 
twanging  of  the  bow.2  In  the  Society  Islands,  if  the 
land  had  been  in  any  way  defiled  by  an  enemy,  a 
mode  of  religious  purification  consisted  in  offering 
pieces  of  coral,  collected  expressly,  on  the  altar  to 
the  gods,  to  induce  them  '  to  cleanse  the  land  from 
pollution,  that  it  might  be  pure  as  the  coral  fresh 
from  the  sea.' 3 

The  Voguls,  whose  most  frequent  prayers  are  for 
success  in  hunting,  are  said  to  promote  their  fulfilment 
by  '  images  in  the  shape  of  the  beast  more  especially 
sought  for,  rudely  shaped  out  of  wood  or  stone' 4  But 
to  dance  like  the  animal  would  naturally  serve  the 

1  Sproat,  p.  208.  2  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  iii.  167. 

»  Ellis,  i.  348.  *  Latham,  Desc.  Etk.,  i.  459. 


SAVAGE  MODES   OF  PXAYER.  67 

purpose  as  well ;  and  so  the  interpretation  of  some 
dances  as  symbolised  prayers  explains  several 
American  customs  which  are  strikingly  analogous  to 
the  African  gorilla  dance  already  described.  Every 
Mandan  Indian  was  compelled  by  social  law  to  keep 
his  buffalo's  mask,  consisting  of  the  skin  and  horns  of 
a  buffalo's  head,  in  his  lodge,  ready  to  put  on  and  wear 
in  the  buffalo  dance,  whenever  the  protracted  absence 
of  that  animal  from  the  prairie  rendered  it  expedient 
to  resort  to  this  means  for  the  purpose  of  inducing 
the  herds  to  change  the  direction  of  their  wanderings 
and  bend  their  course  towards  the  Mandan  villages. 
And  a  principal  part  in  the  annual  celebration  of  the 
subsidence  of  the  great  waters  consisted  in  the  buffalo 
dance,  wherein  eight  men  dressed  in  entire  buffalo 
skins,  so  as  to  imitate  closely  the  appearance  and 
motions  of  buffaloes,  were  the  chief  actors,  and  four 
old  men  chanted  prayers  to  the  Great  Spirit  for  the 
continuation  of  his  favours  in  sending  them  good 
supplies  of  buffaloes  for  the  coming  year.1  In  this 
instance  the  close  relation  between  dance  and  prayer, 
the  dance  being  either  supplementary  or  explicative, 
clearly  appears  ;  as  it  also  does  in  a  very  similar 
buffalo  dance  performed  by  a  neighbouring  tribe  of 
the  Mandans,  the  Minnatarees.  In  their  ceremony  six 
elderly  men  acted  the  animals,  imitating  with  great 

1  Catlin,  i.  127,  164,  182. 
F  2 


68  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

perfection  even  the  peculiar  sound  of  their  voice.1 
Behind  them  came  a  man,  who  represented  the  driv- 
ing of  the  beasts  forward,  and  who,  at  a  certain  point, 
placing  his  hands  before  his  face,  sang,  and  made  a 
long  speech  in  the  nature  of  a  prayer,  containing  good 
wishes  for  the  buffalo  hunt  and  for  war,  as  also  an 
appeal  to  the  heavenly  powers  to  be  propitious  to 
the  huntsmen  and  their  arms.  So  again  the  Sioux 
Indians  for  several  days  before  starting  on  a  bear 
hunt  would  hold  a  bear  dance,  which  was  regarded  as 
'  a  most  important  and  indispensable  form,'  and  in 
which  the  whole  tribe  joined  in  a  song  to  the  Bear 
Spirit,  to  conciliate  as  well  as  to  consult  him.  'All 
with  the  motions  of  their  hands  closely  imitated  the 
movements  of  that  animal ;  some  representing  its 
motion  in  running,  and  others  the  peculiar  attitude 
and  hanging  of  the  paws  when  it  is  sitting  up  on  its 
hind  feet  and  looking  out  for  the  approach  of  an 
enemy.' 2  And  the  same  tribe,  whenever  they  had 
bad  luck  in  hunting,  would  institute  a  dance  to  invoke 
the  aid  of  one  of  their  gods.3 

To  the  African  gorilla  dance,  the  Mandan  buffalo 
dance,  the  Sioux  bear  dance,  may  be  added  the 
custom  of  the  Koossa  Kafirs,  who,  before  they  start 
on  a  hunt,  perform  a  wonderful  game,  which  is 

1  Klemm,  ii.  120.     '  Ahmten  die  knarrende  rochelnde  Stirame  des 
Bison thiers  in  grosser  Vollkommenheit  nach. ' 

1  Catlin,  i.  244-5.  3  Schoolcraft,  iii.  487. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  69 

considered  absolutely  necessary  to  the  success  of 
the  undertaking.1  One  of  them,  representing  some 
kind  of  game,  takes  a  handful  of  grass  in  his  mouth 
and  runs  about  on  all  fours ;  whilst  the  rest  make- 
believe  to  transfix  him  with  their  spears,  till  at  last  he 
throws  himself  on  the  ground  as  if  he  were  killed.2 
On  the  occasion  of  a  Sioux  Indian  dreaming  of  the 
fish-eating  cormorant,  a  fish  dance  was  instituted,  to 
ward  off  any  danger  portended,  in  which  the  most 
elaborate  imitation  of  the  cormorant  was  observed. 
The  medicine-men,  dancing  up  to  a  fish,  affixed  to  a 
pole,  began  quacking,  flapping  their  arms  like  wings, 
biting  at  the  fish,  and  pretending  to  hide  a  piece  in 
their  nests  away  from  the  wolves.3  The  Ahts,  again, 
Sproat  observed,  spent  the  eve  of  a  deer  hunt  'in 
dancing  and  singing  and  in  various  ceremonies  in- 
tended to  secure  good  luck  on  the  morrow.'4  And 
in  South  Australia  it  is  remarkable  that,  when  boys 
of  a  certain  age  undergo  the  ceremony  of  losing 
their  front  teeth,  power  is  conferred  on  them  of 
killing  the  kangaroo  by  a  kind  of  kangaroo  dance. 
First  of  all,  a  kangaroo  of  grass  is  deposited  at 
their  feet ;  and  then  the  actors,  the  adults  of  the  tribe, 
having  fitted  themselves  with  long  tails  of  grass,  set 
off '  as  a  herd  of  kangaroos,  now  jumping  along,  then 

1  '  Ein  wunderbares  Spiel,  das  zum  gliicklichen  Erfolg  des  Unter- 
aiehmens  durchatts  nothivendig  gehalten  wird.' 

*  Lichtenstein,  i.  444.  *  Mrs.  Eastman,  Dahcotah,  p.  77. 

*  Sproat,  p.  146. 


70  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

lying  down  and  scratching  themselves,  as  those  ani- 
mals do  when  basking  in  the  sun,'  two  armed  men 
following  them  meanwhile,  as  it  were  to  steal  on  them 
unmolested  and  spear  them.1 

The  same  thought  occurs  in  prayers  for  rain. 
Modern  Servian  peasants,  pouring  water  over  a  girl 
covered  with  grass  and  flowers,  employ  a  mode  of  pe- 
tition for  rain  very  similar  to  that  in  vogue  near  Lake 
Nyanza.  There,  after  a  wild  dance,  a  jar  of  water 
is  placed  before  the  village  chief:  the  woman  who 
acts  as  priestess  of  the  ceremonies  washes  her  hands,, 
arms,  and  face  with  the  water ;  then  a  large  quantity 
of  it  is  poured  over  her,  and  finally  all  the  women 
present  rush  to  dip  their  calabashes  in  the  jar  and  to 
toss  the  water  in  the  air  with  loud  cries  and  wild 
gesticulations.2 

Again,  the  common  savage  war  dance  may  be 
taken  to  have  a  religious  significance  in  addition  to- 
fts secular  motive  of  sustaining  martial  feelings  and 
habits.  In  the  war  dance  of  the  Navajoes  of  New 
Mexico  the  most  important  part  of  the  war  dance 
was  the  arrow  dance,  when  a  young  virgin,  beautifully 
dressed,  represented  in  gesture  '  the  war  path.'  An 
eye-witness  has  described  it  as  a  really  beautiful 
performance.  Slowly  and  steadily  she  would  pursue 
her  imaginary  foe  ;  suddenly  her  step  would  quicken 
as  she  came  in  sight  of  the  enemy ;  she  would  dance 

1  Collins,  New  South  Wales,  p.  368.          2  Callaway,  i.  125. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  71 

faster  and  faster,  and,  seizing  an  arrow,  demonstrate 
by  the  rapidity  of  her  movements  that  the  fight  had 
begun  ;  she  would  point  with  the  arrow,  show  how 
it  wings  its  course,  how  the  scalp  is  taken,  how  the 
victory  is  won.1  Among  the  Winnebagoe  Indians 
also  it  was  part  of  the  war  dance  for  a  warrior  to 
go  through  the  pantomime  of  the  discovery  of  the 
enemy,  of  the  ambuscade,  the  attack,  the  slaughter, 
and  the  scalping.2  And  in  this  reference  may  be 
noted  the  curious  proceeding  of  the  women  of  Accra, 
on  the  Guinea  Coast,  who,  whilst  the  male  population 
were  engaged  in  war  with  a  neighbouring  people,  en- 
deavoured every  day  to  bring  it  to  a  happy  issue  by 
dancing  fetish  ;  that  is,  by  fighting  sham  battles  with 
wooden  swords,  flying  to  the  boats  on  the  beach  and 
pretending  to  row,  throwing  some  one  into  the  sea, 
taking  a  trowel  and  making  believe  to  build  a  wall — 
all  actions  literally  symbolical  of  corresponding  ones 
to  be  performed  by  the  men  in  the  course  of  defeating 
their  enemy.3  In  Madagascar,  too,  when  the  men  are 
absent  in  war,  the  custom  of  the  women  to  dance,  in 
order  to  inspire  their  husbands  with  courage,  has  been 
thought  not  to  be  destitute  of  a  religious  meaning. 
That  a  dance  may  be  in  reality  a  form  of  prayer, 

1  Schoolcraft,  iv.  80.  -  Ibid.,  Hi.  285. 

3  Isert,  Guinea,  in  French  translation,  p.  204  :  '  L'action  de  ranier 
voulait  dire  que  leurs  maris  allaient  passer  la  riviere  Volta  pour  se 
battre  avec  les  Augeens  et  les  noyer  ;  la  truelle  et  le  travail  de  matron 
indiquait  Perection  de  fort  Konigstein.' 


72  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

a  petition  acted  instead  of  spoken,  as  more  likely  so 
to  be  understood,  makes  it  possible  that  prayers  may 
be  hidden  under  customs  which  are  generally  only 
cited  to  illustrate  the  absurdity  of  primitive  meta- 
physics. May  it  not  be  that  the  Indian,  when  he 
thinks  to  ensure  a  successful  chase  by  drawing  a  figure 
of  his  game  with  a  line  leading  to  its  heart  from  its 
mouth,  and  by  so  subjecting  its  movements  to  himself, 
or  when  he  thinks  to  cure  a  man  of  sickness  by  shoot- 
ing the  bark-effigy  of  the  animal  supposed  to  possess 
him — may  it  not  be  that  he  thereby  hopes  to  influence 
known  or  unknown  natural  forces  in  his  favour  by  a 
clear  representation  of  his  wants  ?  The  control  of 
natural  phenomena  by  witchcraft  may  thus  have  been 
in  its  origin  a  direction  to  natural  phenomena,  or 
rather  to  the  spirits  ruling  them  ;  an  address  perhaps 
to  those  spirits  of  the  dead  which  to  a  savage  are  his 
earliest  and  for  long  his  only  gods  ;  and  thus  the 
absurdities  of  fetishism  might  become  intelligible  as 
lifeless  prayers,  with  more  or  less  of  their  primal 
meaning,  descended  from  such  a  philosophy  of  nature. 
The  Kamschadal  child  sent  out  naked  to  make  the  rain 
stop,  clear  as  the  meaning  of  the  custom  is  with  the 
prayer  joined  to  it,  would  without  it  appear  in  the 
light  of  ordinary  fetishism.  So  the  Khond,  carrying 
a  branch  cut  from  hostile  soil  to  his  god  of  war,  and 
there,  after  he  has  dressed  it  like  one  of  the  enemy, 
throwing  it  down,  with  certain  incantations,  on  the 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  73 

shrine  of  the  divinity,  urges  his  petition  in  a  way  which 
even  the  god  of  war  can  scarcely  fail  to  understand. 
And  the  Basuto  woman,  who  in  her  wish  for  children, 
prays  to  her  tutelary  divinity  for  the  accomplishment 
of  her  desires  by  making  dolls  of  clay  and  treating 
them  as  infants,  affords  yet  another  illustration  of  the 
operation  of  the  same  law  of  thought.1 

It  remains  to  show  how,  in  primitive  theology, 
prayer  attaches  itself  as  well  to  the  material  as  the 
spiritual  world,  for  it  is  here  especially  that  it  finds 
its  counterpart  in  the  folk-lore  of  our  own  day.  As, 
however,  there  is  scarcely  an  object  in  nature  which 
in  a  state  of  ignorance  may  not  with  reason  be  wor- 
shipped, a  few  illustrations  must  be  taken  for  thou- 
sands on  a  subject  it  were  less  easy  to  exhaust  than 
the  patience  of  the  reader. 

'As  for  animals  having  reasoning  powers,'  says 
an  exceptionally  credible  witness,  '  I  have  heard  In- 
dians talk  and  reason  with  a  horse  the  same  as  with 
a  person.' 2  Our  fairy  tales  of  talking  animals  would 
be  commonplace  facts  to  a  savage.  Hence  it  can  be 
no  matter  of  surprise  to  find  that  it  is  a  common 
Indian  custom  to  converse  with  rattlesnakes,  and  to 
endeavour  to  propitiate  them  with  presents  of  tobacco. 
On  one  occasion,  the  lowas  having  begun  to  build  a 
village,  the  presence  of  a  rattlesnake  on  a  neighbour- 

1  Casalis,  p.  265.  2  Schoolcraft  (Prescott),  iii.  230. 


74  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

ing  hill  was  suddenly  announced,  when  forthwith 
started  the  great  snake  doctor  with  tobacco  and  other 
presents :  when  he  had  offered  these,  and  had  had  a 
long  talk  with  the  snake,  he  returned  to  his  village, 
with  the  satisfactory  news  that  his  tribesmen  might 
now  travel  in  safety,  as  peace  had  been  made  between! 
them  and  the  snakes.1 

But  perhaps  of  all  natural  objects  that  have 
attracted  human  worship,  and  been  regarded  as  a 
supreme  source  of  human  woe  or  welfare,  none  caa 
compare  with  the  moon.  For  the  moon's  changes 
of  aspect  being  far  more  remarkable  than  any  of  the 
sun's,  and  more  calculated  to  inspire  dread  by  the 
nocturnal  darkness  they  contend  with,  are  held  in 
popular  fancy  nearly  everywhere  to  cause,  portend,  or 
accord  with  changes  in  the  lot  of  mortals  and  all 
things  terrestrial.  In  the  Hervey  Islands  cocoa-nuts 
are  invariably  planted  at  the  full  of  the  moon,  the 
size  of  the  latter  being  held  symbolical  of  the  future 
fulness  of  the  fruit ; 2  and  in  South  Africa  it  is  unlucky 
to  begin  a  journey  or  any  work  of  importance  in  the 
last  quarter  of  the  moon.3  The  moon's  wane  makes 
things  on  earth  wane  too ;  when  it  is  new  or  full,  it  is 
everywhere  the  proper  season  for  new  crops  to  be 
sown,  new  households  to  be  formed,  new  weather  to- 
begin. 

1  Schoolcraft,  iii.  273,  231. 
2  Gill,  312.  s  Pinkerton,  xvi.  875. 


SAVAGE  MODES  Of  PRAYER.  75 

The  feeling  of  the  Congo  Africans,  who  at  the 
sight  of  the  new  moon  fall  on  their  knees  or  stand  and 
clap  their  hands,  praying  that  their  lives  may  be  re- 
newed like  that  of  the  moon,  corresponds  exactly  with 
the  idea  of  English  folk-lore  that  crops  are  more 
likely  to  be  plentiful  if  sown  when  the  moon  is  young, 
or  with  the  idea  of  German  folk-lore  that  the  new 
moon  is  the  season  for  counting  money  which  it  is 
desired  may  increase.  '  On  the  first  appearance  of  the 
new  moon,  which,'  says  Mungo  Park,  '  the  Kafirs  look 
upon  as  newly  created,  the  pagan  natives,  as  well  as 
Mahomedans,  say  a  short  prayer,'  seemingly  the  only 
adoration  they  offer  to  the  Supreme  Being  ;  *  so  that  the 
sentiment  of  the  Congo  prayer  may  be  guessed  to  un- 
derlie, consciously  or  not,  the  salutations  by  which  the 
new  moon  is  greeted  generally  throughout  Africa,  from 
the  salutations  of  the  Hottentots  to  the  prayers  of 
the  Makololos,  for  the  success  of  their  journeys  or 
the  destruction  of  their  enemies.2 

More  difficult  to  understand  than  the  worship  of 
either  animals  or  the  heavenly  bodies  is  that  of  such 
inanimate  things  as  stones,  trees,  or  rivers.  Yet  the 
state  of  thought  is  not  so  far  remote  from  our  own  but 
that  we  can  still  listen  with  pleasure,  in  stories  like 
'  Undine/  to  the  voices  of  the  forest  or  the  river.  To 
a  savage,  however,  it  is  not  only  the  motion  or  the 
sound  of  natural  objects  which  suggests  their  divinity,. 

1  Pinkerton,  xvi.  875.      2  Livingstone,  South  Africa,  p.  235. 


76  SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER. 

but  the  danger  that  is  ever  latent  in  them  ;  and  it  is 
rather  to  prevent  the  river  from  drowning  him  or  the 
tree  from  falling  on  him  than  from  any  perception  of 
their  beauty  that  he  makes  offerings  to  them  and 
pays  them  homage.  Such  feelings  as  that  of  the  Cree 
Indians,  who  believed  that  a  deer,  found  dead  within 
a  few  yards  of  a  willow  bush  which  they  worshipped 
and  of  which  it  had  eaten,  had  fallen  a  victim  to  the 
sin  of  its  sacrilege,  are  not  confined  to  savage  lands 
nor  times.1  As  savages  have  been  known  to  apologize 
to  a  slain  elephant  or  bear,  assuring  it  that  its  death  was 
accidental,  so  it  is  said  that  in  parts  of  Germany  a 
woodcutter  will  still  (or  would  recently)  beg  the  pardon 
of  a  fine  healthy  tree  before  cutting  it  down.2  In  our 
own  midland  counties  there  is  a  feeling  to  this  day 
against  binding  up  elder-wood  with  other  faggots  ;  and 
in  Suffolk  it  is  believed  misfortune  will  ensue  if  ever 
it  is  burnt.  In  Germany  formerly  an  elder-tree  might 
not  be  cut  down  entirely  ;  and  Grimm  was  himself  an 
eye-witness  of  a  peasant  praying  with  bare  head  and 
folded  hands  before  venturing  to  cut  its  branches. 
That  trees  are  still  popularly  endowed  with  a  con- 
scious personality  is  further  proved  by  the  custom, 
not  yet  extinct,  of  trying  to  secure  the  future  favours 
of  fruit  trees  by  presents  and  prayers.  The  placing 
of  money  in  a  hole  dug  at  the  foot  of  them,  the  pre- 

'fl  Franklin,  First  Journey,  i.  1 60. 
2  Wuttke,  Deutsclie  Volksaberglaube,  p.  14. 


SAVAGE  MODES  OF  PRAYER.  77 

senting  them  with  money  on  New  Year's  Day,  the 
shaking  under  them  of  the  remainder  of  the  Christ- 
mas dinner,  the  beating  of  them  with  rods  on  Holy 
Innocents'  Day — all  German  methods  to  incite  fruit 
trees  to  further  fertility — answer  closely  to  the  Eng- 
lish custom  of  apple-howling  or  wassailing,  when  at 
Christmas  or  Epiphany  the  inhabitants  of  a  parish, 
walking  in  procession  to  the  principal  orchards,  and 
there  singling  out  the  principal  tree,  sprinkle  it  with 
cider,  or  place  cider-soaked  cakes  of  toast  and  sugar 
in  its  branches,  saluting  it  at  the  same  time  with  set 
words  in  the  form  of  a  prayer  to  the  trees  to  be  fruitful 
for  the  ensuing  year,  as  the  doggerel  verses  following 
show  plainly  enough  : — 

Here's  to  thee,  old  apple  tree, 

Whence  thou  mayst  bud  and  whence  thou  mayst  blow, 

And  whence  thou  mayst  bear  apples  enow, 

Hats  full,  caps  full, 

Bushel,  bushel,  sacks  full, 

And  my  pocket  full  too.  * 

And  similar  prayers,  as  lifeless  now  as  the  fossil 
shells  on  the  shore  of  some  ancient  coral  sea,  lie 
scattered  abundantly  in  many  an  English  rhyme  and 
ballad,  serving  to  show  how  the  philosophy  of  one  age 
passes  into  the  nonsense  of  a  later  one,  and  how  ideas 
which  constituted  a  religion  for  one  time  may  only 
survive  as  an  amusement  for  another. 

1  Polwhele,  History  of  Cornwall,  p.  48. 


III. 
SOME   SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

THE  German  proverb,  '  Speak,  that  I  may  see  thee,' 
may  be  applied  as  truly  to  a  whole  community  as  to 
an  individual.  For  proverbs — or,  roughly  defining, 
popular  sayings — reflect  conspicuously  the  general 
character  of  a  nation,  constituting  its  actual  code  of 
social,  political,  and  moral  philosophy,  Besides  the 
beauty  and  wisdom,  from  which  alone  many  of  them 
derive  an  imperishable  charm,  they  serve  as  a  kind  of 
literature  in  miniature,  in  which  the  inner  life  of  a 
nation  is  more  clearly  legible  than  in  its  more  vo- 
luminous writings.  And  in  spite  of  the  general 
resemblance  which  seems  to  pervade  the  proverbial 
lore  of  the  world,  arising  partly  from  the  direct  in- 
terchange of  thought  inseparable  from  international 
commerce  of  any  kind,  partly  from  a  uniformity  of 
experience — such,  for  example,  as  has  impressed  on 
all  people  the  wisdom  of  caution  and  truth — there  are 
yet  well-marked  differences  in  the  proverbs  of  nations, 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  79 

which  as  clearly  retain  the  records  of  their  several 
histories  as  do  their  different  laws  and  customs. 
Remarkable,  therefore,  as  is  the  substantial  similarity 
•of  proverbial  codes,  of  which  the  general  characteris- 
tic is  a  high  sense  of  right  coupled  with  a  mournful 
consciousness  of  human  infirmity,  they  betray  often  in 
the  very  expression  of  the  same  idea  the  individuality 
of  their  national  birthplace.  It  is  obvious,  for  instance, 
that,  largely  as  all  modern  nations  are  indebted  to 
a  writer  like  JEsop  for  the  thoughts  they  share  in 
common,  each  nation  severally  will  owe  more  of  its 
wisdom  to  writers  of  its  own,  who,  like  Shake- 
speare or  Cervantes,  have,  from  greater  familiarity 
with  the  manners,  been  more  competent  to  express 
the  feelings,  of  their  different  countries.  But  the 
way  in  which  good  proverbs,  like  good  gold,  find 
acceptance  everywhere,  and  pass  readily  into  the 
current  coinage  of  different  realms,  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  fact  of  the  existence,  in  countries  so  widely 
remote  as  Spain,  Arabia,  Persia,  Afghanistan,  and 
India,  of  a  saying,  second  to  none  in  all  the  essentials 
of  a  good  proverb,  to  the  effect  that  '  when  God  wills 
the  destruction  of  an  ant,  he  supplies  it  with  wings.' ' 
An  instructive  instance  of  the  light  thrown  on 
national  character  by  proverbs  may  be  supplied  from 

1  'Da  Dios  alas  a  la  hormiga  para  que  se  pierda  mas  aina,'  is  the 
Spanish  version.—  Polyglot  of  Foreign  Proverbs,  210,  Compare  with 
Roebuck's  Persian  and  Hindoostanee  Proverbs,  i.  365,  and  ii.  283  ; 
Thornburn's  Afghan  Frontier^  279  ;  and  Burckhardt's  Arabic  Proverbs. 


8o  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

a  comparison  of  Italian,  German,  and  Persian  teach- 
ing on  the  subject  of  vindictiveness.  In  communities 
destitute  of  social  organisation,  the  '  vendetta,'  or  duty 
of  blood-revenge,  probably  preceded  and  led  the  way 
to  the  practice  of  legal  punishment.  Originally  it  was 
a  kind  of  lynch-law,  supplying  the  default  of  any  legal 
protection  of  life  ;  and  all  nations  bear  traces  in  their 
history  of  having  passed  through  a  stage  of  growth  in 
which  the  sacred  duty  of  vengeance  was  the  germ  of 
any  idea  of  a  more  judicial  retribution.  Confucius 
made  it  a  duty  for  a  son  to  slay  his  father's  murderer, 
just  as  Moses  insisted  on  a  strictly  retaliatory  penalty 
for  bloodshed.  The  duty  of  revenge,  which  if  it  is  yet 
extinct  in  Corsica  survives  with  so  much  interest  in 
the  play  of  'The  Corsican  Brothers/  to  this  day,  in 
places  like  Fiji,  still  passes  from  father  to  son,  and 
from  the  son  to  the  nearest  relation.  The  longer 
survival  of  such  feelings  in  Italy,  consequent  on  the 
different  circumstances  of  her  history,  is  clearly  im- 
pressed on  the  proverbial  philosophy  of  her  people, 
constituting  a  remarkable  contrast  to  the  sentiments 
of  other  countries.  For  the  Italian,  extolling  the 
sweetness  of  revenge,  declares  it  a  morsel  fit  for  God  ; 
and,  expressing  pity  or  contempt  for  the  man  who 
either  cannot  or  will  not  carry  out  his  revenge,  counsels 
patience  and  the  waiting  of  time  and  place  for  its 
successful  execution.  In  a  proverb  so  terribly  expres- 
sive that  you  seem  to  hear  in  it  the  assassin's  gnashing 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  81 

teeth,  he  will  tell  you  that '  revenge,  though  a  hundred 
years  old,  still  has  its  milk  teeth,'  a  maxim  which  stands 
on  no  higher  a  level  than  the  pagan  African  saying, 
'  Hate  hath  no  medicine/  or  than  that  of  Afghanistan, 
'  Speak  good  words  to  an  enemy  very  softly,  gradually 
destroy  him  root  and  branch  ; '  and  which  may  be  fitly 
compared  with  the  Fijian  expression  of  malice  :  '  Let 
the  shell  of  the  oyster  perish  by  reason  of  years,  and 
to  these  add  a  thousand  more,  still  my  hatred  shall 
be  hot'  How  much  purer  than  the  Italian  is  the 
German  teaching,  which  declares  revenge  to  be  fresh 
wrong,  the  conversion  of  a  little  right  into  a  great 
injustice,  and  sure  in  its  turn  to  draw  revenge  after  it  ; 
or  how  far  nobler  still  is  the  more  positive  sentiment 
of  Persia,  that  to  take  revenge  for  an  injury  is  the 
sign  of  a  mean  spirit ;  that  it  is  easy  to  return  evil 
for  evil,  but  that  the  manly  thing  is  to  return  good 
for  it ! 

The  contrast  conveyed  in  these  proverbs  is  the 
more  striking,  in  that  Italy  might  pre-eminently  call 
herself  the  Catholic,  as  against  Germany  the  heretical, 
or  Persia  the  infidel,  land.  It  has  been  said  that 
every  tenth  proverb  in  an  Italian  collection  contains 
a  selfish  or  cynical  maxim ;  and  though  the  beauty 
and  purity  of  many  Italian  sayings  counterbalance  the 
baseness  of  others — those,  for  instance,  on  love  being 
as  refined  as  those  on  revenge  are  barbarous — it  may 
not  be  uninteresting  to  compare  generally  the  proverbs 

G 


82  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS, 

of  Italy  with  those  of  a  land  like  Persia  where  the 
religious  history  has  been  so  different. 

The  noblest  Italian  proverb  is  to  the  effect  that 
a  hundred  years  cannot  repair  a  moment's  loss  of 
honour  ;  the  basest,  perhaps,  that  bad  as  it  is  to  be  a 
knave,  it  is  worse  to  be  known  as  one.  To  love  a 
friend  with  all  his  faults  ;  to  associate  with  the  good 
in  order  to  be  good  ;  to  work  in  order  to  rest ;  to  do 
right  in  spite  of  consequences,  and  good  irrespectively 
of  persons ;  to  do  evil  never,  whatever  the  benefit 
— these  are  among  the  highest  lessons  of  Italian 
proverb-lore.  That  among  men  of  honour  a  word  is 
a  bond,  and  that  conscience  is  as  good  as  a  thousand 
witnesses  ;  that  the  best  sermon  is  a  good  life,  and 
that  the  gains  of  begging  are  dearly  bought,  are 
maxims  of  the  same  upright  tendency.  Yet,  over 
against  these,  are  proverbs  pervaded  by  the  saddest 
spirit  of  universal  mistrust,  instilling  utter  disbelief 
of  any  sincerity  in  friendship,  and  even  counselling  to 
selfish  or  downright  wicked  conduct.  What  more 
melancholy  evidence  of  this  than  is  afforded  by  the 
following  common  sayings  ? — 

He  who  suspects  is  seldom  to  blame. 

Trust  was  a  good  man,  Trust-not  a  better. 

From  those  I  trust  God  guard  me  ;  from  those  I  mistrust  I  will  guard 

myself. 

Who  would  have  many  friends  let  him  test  but  few. 
Tell  your  secret  to  your  friend,  and  he  will  set  his  loot  on  your  neck. 

Or,  again,  what  can  be  thought  of  such  maxims 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  83 

as,  that  it  is  expedient  to  peel  a  fig  for  your  friend 
but  a  peach  for  your  enemy  ;  that  the  man  who 
esteems  none  but  himself  is  happy  as  a  king  ;  that 
public  money,  like  holy  water,  is  the  property  of  all 
men  ;  or  that  with  art  and  knavery  men  may  live 
through  half  the  year,  and  with  knavery  and  art 
through  the  other  ? 

The  Persian  proverbs  seem  to  breathe  a  different 
moral  atmosphere  from  these,  being  as  generous  in 
character  as  the  Italian  are  cynical,  and  displaying  a 
free  spirit  of  liberality,  trust,  independence,  above  all, 
of  truthfulness,  which  is  unsurpassed  in  any  country 
of  Europe.  If  in  Italy  it  is  common  to  say  that  a 
man  who  cannot  flatter  knows  not  how  to  talk,  in 
Persia  the  sentiment  prevails  that  to  flatter  is  worse 
than  to  abuse.  The  Persian,  true  to  the  character 
given  of  him  by  Herodotus,  holds  boldly,  that  the 
man  who  speaks  truth  is  always  at  ease  ;  that  men 
never  suffer  from  speaking  the  truth ;  that  it  behoves 
them  to  speak  their  minds  unreservedly,  for  that 
there  is  no  hill  in  front  of  the  tongue.  Add  to  this 
the  popular  sayings,  that  the  accounts  of  friends  are 
in  the  heart,  and  that  it  is  better  to  be  in  chains  with 
friends  than  in  the  garden  with  strangers.  That  it 
should  have  become  proverbial  in  Persia,  that  a  man 
lowers  himself  by  vexing  the  poor,  and  loses  all  claim 
to  greatness  by  finding  fault  with  his  inferiors,  proves 
the  purity  of  a  religion  which  has  instilled  such 


84  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

thoughts  into  the  ethics  of  a  nation  ;  nor  could  any 
language  in  Europe  produce  proverbs  characterised 
by  a  higher  spirit  of  morality  than  is  revealed  in  the 
following  selection  : — 

A  high  name  is  better  than  a  high  house. 

The  cure  for  anger  is  silence. 

A  man  must  cut  out  his  own  garments  of  reputation. 

Heaven  is  at  the  feet  of  mothers  (i.e.  lies  in  dutiful  obedience). 

It  is  better  to  die  of  want  than  to  beg. 

The  liberal  man  is  the  friend  of  God. 

Practise  liberality,  but  lay  no  stress  on  the  obligation. 

As  another  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  a 
few  proverbs  may  condense  centuries  of  history,  may 
be  instanced  the  recorded  experiences  of  mankind 
touching  priests  and  priestcraft.  With  no  other 
evidence  than  that  of  proverbs  before  him,  a  future 
historian  of  Europe  might  easily  detect  a  marked 
difference  of  feeling  on  this  matter  between  Pro- 
testant Germany  and  the  Catholic  countries  of 
Europe.  Not  that  the  latter  are  wanting  in  sayings 
to  the  prejudice  of  the  priestly  class,  but  they  are  not 
so  numerous  as  in  Germany.  The  French  have  two 
proverbs,  marked  with  all  the  wit  and  boldness  of 
their  genius,  one  charging  anyone  who  values  a  clean 
house  not  to  let  into  it  either  a  priest  or  a  pigeon  ; 
the  other  declaring  that  it  is  human  ignorance  alone 
which  causes  the  pot  to  boil  for  priests.  The  Spanish 
experience  also  is,  that  it  is  best  neither  to  have  a 
good  friar  for  a  friend  nor  a  bad  one  for  an  enemy, 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  85 

and  that  it  is  well  to  keep  awake  in  a  land  thickly 
tenanted  by  monks.  But  the  Germans  go  much 
farther  than  this.  In  German  estimation  the  priest 
is  a  being  who,  in  company  with  a  woman,  may  be 
found  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  mischief  that  goes  on 
in  the  world,  and  is  as  little  likely  as  a  woman  to 
forgive  you  an  injury.  Like  the  bites  of  wolves, 
those  of  priests  are  hard  to  heal,  so  that  it  is  best,  if 
you  fight  with  them  at  all,  to  beat  them  to  death.  If 
they  are  ever  hot,  it  is  from  eating,  not  from  work  ;  for 
they  always  take  care  to  bless  themselves  first,  nor 
•do  they  ever  pay  any  tithes  to  one  another. 

The  above  comparisons  suffice  to  show  how  dif- 
ferences of  national  character,  and  even  how  the 
operation  of  different  forms  of  faith,  may  reveal 
themselves  in  proverbs.  Yet  such  estimates  must 
be  formed  with  caution,  in  consideration  of  the  wide 
possibilities  of  error  which  are  inseparable  from  so 
inexhaustible  a  subject.  For  not  only  may  the 
proverb-collector  easily  attribute  to  one  country 
alone  a  saying  which  belongs  equally  to,  or  may  even 
have  originated  in,  another,  but  his  canon  of  selection 
is  somewhat  arbitrary  and  dependent  on  his  precon- 
ceptions of  what  a  proverb  really  is.  '  To  take  the 
ball  on  the  hop,'  for  instance,  is  as  genuine  an  English 
proverb  as  '  to  make  hay  whilst  the  sun  shines,'  which 
contains  the  same  idea  ;  yet  whilst  the  one  might  be 
heard  every  day,  the  other  might  not  be  heard  once  a 


86  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

year,  so  that  it  might  easily  escape  notice  altogether, 
or  if  found  be  rejected  as  obsolete.  We  can  conse- 
quently, as  in  other  branches  of  human  study,  only 
make  use,  on  trust,  of  such  data  as  lie  at  hand,  and, 
whilst  fully  acknowledging  the  imperfection  of  the 
evidence,  strive  after  an  approximation  to  truth,  with- 
out hope  for  its  actual  attainment. 

If  now  we  extend  the  limits  of  our  comparison,  to 
take  in  some  proverbs  of  the  lower  races  as  well  as  of 
the  higher,  we  shall  find  therein  a  strong  corrobo- 
ration  of  the  lesson  already  learnt  in  any  comparison 
of  the  superstitions,  myths,  and  manners  of  different 
societies ;  namely,  that  differences  of  race,  colour,  and 
even  structure,  sink  into  insignificance  when  compared 
with  the  intellectual  affinities  which  unite  the  families 
of  mankind,  and  that  there  is,  perhaps,  no  phase  of 
thought  nor  shade  of  feeling  belonging  to  the  higher 
culture  of  the  world  to  which  we  may  not  find  an  anti- 
type or  even  an  equivalent  in  the  lower.  If  we  take 
some  of  the  proverbs  collected  from  tribes  confessedly 
low  in  civilisation — those,  for  instance,  of  West  Africa 
— and  compare  them  with  proverbs  still  prevalent  in 
Europe,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  strong 
likeness  between  them,  as  well  as  impressed  with  the 
idea,  that  many  actually  existent  common  sayings 
may  have  had  their  birth  in  days  of  the  most  re- 
mote and  savage  antiquity.  The  immense  number  of 
modern  proverbs,  drawn  from  the  observation  of  the 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  87 

natural,  and  especially  of  the  animal,  world  (a  num- 
ber which  must  be  nearly  one  out  of  five),  coupled 
with  the  coincidence  that  the  same  fact  is  perhaps 
the  most  striking  one  in  the  proverbs  collected  from 
West  Africa,  seems  to  lend  some  support  to  such 
a  theory. 

As  an  introductory  instance  let  us  take  savage 
and  civilised  sentiments  about  poverty,  a  belief  in 
the  misfortune  of  which  is  written  clearly  in  every 
language  of  Europe.  Italian  experience  says  that 
poverty  has  no  kin,  and  that  poor  men  do  penance 
for  rich  men's  sins ;  in  Germany  the  poor  have  to 
dance  as  the  rich  pipe  ;  whilst  in  Spain  and  Denmark 
the  evil  is  expressed  more  graphically  still,  it  being 
matter  of  observation  in  the  one  country  that  the 
poor  man's  crop  is  destroyed  by  hail  every  year ;  in 
the  other,  that  the  poor  man's  corn  always  grows  thin. 
And,  in  the  Oji  dialect,  spoken  by  about  two  millions 
of  people,  including  the  Ashantees,  Fantees,  and 
others,  it  is  also  proverbial  that  the  poor  man  has  no 
friend,  that  poverty  makes  a  man  a  slave,  and  that 
hard  words  are  fit  for  the  poor.  And  as  the  Dutch 
have  learnt,  that  '  poor  folks'  wisdom  goes  for  little/ 
or  the  Italians,  that  '  the  words  of  the  poor  go  many 
to  the  sackful,'  so  in  Oji  exactly  the  same  idea  is 
conveyed  in  the  saying,  that  '  when  a  poor  man 
makes  a  proverb  it  does  not  spread '  ;  in  Yoruba,  in 
the  saying,  that  '  poverty  destroys  a  man's  repu- 


88  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

tation  ; '   and  in  Accra  in  the  still  cleverer  proverb, 
that '  a  poor  man's  pipe  does  not  sound.' ' 

The  proverbs  of  savages  are  moral  and  immoral, 
elevated  and  base,  precisely  as  are  those  of  more 
civilised  nations.  The  proverbs  of  the  Yorubas,  justly 
observes  the  missionary,  Mr.  Bowen,2  '  are  among  the 
most  remarkable  of  the  world ; '  and  indeed  the  in- 
tellectual powers  and  moral  ideas  displayed  in  West 
African  proverbs  generally  ought  largely  to  modify 
our  conceptions  of  their  originators,  and  make  us 
sceptical  of  that  extreme  dearth  of  mental  wealth 
which  has  so  frequently  been  declared  to  attend  a  low 
standard  of  material  advancement.  Their  wit,  terse- 
ness, vividness  of  illustration,  and  insight  into  life,  are 
all  alike  surprising ;  and  acquaintance  with  them 
must  suggest,  caution  in  any  estimate  of  the  mental 
capacities  of  savages  whose  languages  may  have 
been  less  investigated  and  consequently  remain  less 
known.  'It  has  always  been  passing  travellers  who 
have  drawn  the  most  doleful  pictures  of  so-called 
savages,  and  especially  have  asserted  the  poverty  of 
their  language.' 3  It  may  well  prove  that  better  ac- 
quaintance with  the  languages  of  tribes,  classed  at 
present  for  various  reasons  almost  outside  the  human 

1  Most  of  the  African  proverbs  here  referred  to  are  taken  from 
Captain  Burton's  collection  from  various  sources  in  his  Wit  and  Wisdom 
of  West  Africa. 

1  Central  Africa,  p.  289. 

1  Oscar  Peschel,  The  Races  of  Mankind,  translation,  p.  150. 


SOME  SAVAGE  PRO  VERBS.  89 

family,  may  show  them  to  combine,  as  Humboldt 
found  was  the  case  with  the  once  depreciated  Carib 
language,  '  wealth,  grace,  strength,  and  gentleness.' 
It  was  said  of  the  Veddahs  once  that  they  were 
utterly  destitute  of  either  religion  or  language ;  and 
the  Samojeds  were  reported  to  shriek  and  chatter  like 
apes. 

The  Basutos  of  South  Africa  are  savages,  yet  the 
following  proverbs  are  current  among  them  : — 

A  good  name  makes  one  sleep  well. 
Stolen  goods  do  not  make  one  grow. 
Famine  dwells  in  the  house  of  the  quarrelsome. 
The  thief  catches  himself. 
A  lent  knife  does  not  come  back  alone. 
(i.e.  a  good  deed  is  never  thrown  away.)1 

Compare,  for  elevation  of  mind,  these  Yoruban 
proverbs  with  those  already  noticed  as  current  in 
Italy  :— 

He  that  forgives  gains  the  victory. 

He  who  injures  another  injures  himself. 

Anger  benefits  no  one. 

We  should  not  treat  others  with  contempt.2 

On  the  other  hand,  '  If  a  great  man  should  wrong 
you,  smile  on  him,'  may  be  compared  with  the  Arabic 
advice  about  dangerous  friends,  'If  a  serpent  love 
thee,  wear  him  as  a  necklace ; '  or  with  the  Pashto 

'  Casalis,  Les  Basutos,  pp.  324-8. 

2  Captain  Burton  justly  calls  attention  to  the  possibility  of  many 
Yoruban  proverbs  being  relics  of  the  Moslems,  who,  in  the  tenth- 
century,  overran  the  Soudan. 


90  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

proverb  of  the  same  intention,  '  Though  your  enemy 
be  a  rope  of  reeds,  call  him  a  serpent.' 

Here  are  some  more  proverbs  with  whose  European 
equivalents  everyone  will  be  familiar : — 

ON  FAULTFINDING. 

If  you  can  pull  out,  pull  out  your  own  grey  hairs.     (Oji.) 
Before  healing  others,  heal  yourself.     (Wolof.) 

With  which  we  may  compare  the  Chinese  :  — 

Sweep  the  snow  from   your  own   doors  without  troubling  about 
the  frost  on  your  neighbour's  tiles. 

ON  THE  VALUE  OF  EXPERIENCE. 

Nobody  is  twice  a  fool.     (Accra.) 

Nobody  is  twice  ashamed.      (Accra.) 

He  is  a  fool  whose  sheep  run  away  twice.     (Oji.) 

He  dreads  a  slowworm  who  has  been  bitten  by  a  serpent.     (Oji.)i 

With  which  we  may  compare  our  own — 

It's  a  silly  fish  that's  caught  twice  with  the  same  bait. 

Or  the  German— 

An  old  fox  is  not  caught  twice  in  the  same  trap. 

To  which  both  Italy  and  Holland  have  exactly  similar 
proverbs. 

ON  PERSEVERANCE. 

Perseverance  always  triumphs.     (Basuto.) 

The  moon  does  not  grow  full  in  a  day.     (Oji.) 

Perseverance  is  everything. 

Who  has  patience  has  all  things.     (Yoruba.) 

By  going  and  coming  a  bird  builds  its  nest.     (Oji.) 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  91 

Which   latter    may    be   compared   with   the   Dutch 
proverb — 

By  slow  degrees  a  bird  builds  its  nest. 

And  all  of  them  with  the  Chinese — 

A  mulberry-leaf  becomes  satin  with  time. 

ON  THE  FORCE  OF  HABIT. 

The  thread  follows  the  needle. 

Its  shell  follows  the  snail  wherever  it  goes.     (Yoruba.) 

As  is  the  sword  so  is  the  scabbard.     (Oji.) 

To  which  again  China  supplies  a  good  parallel  in 

The  growth  of  the  mulberry  tree  follows  its  early  bent. ' 

ON  CAUSATION. 

If  nothing  touches  the  palm-leaves  they  do  not  rustle.     (Oji.) 

Nobody  hates  another  without  a  cause.     (Accra. ) 

A  feather  does  not  stick  without  gum.     (A  Pashto  proverb.) 

Again,  the  Turkish  proverb,  that  curses,  like 
chickens,  come  home  to  roost,  or  the  Italian  one  that, 
like  processions,  they  come  back  to  their  starting-point,. 
is  well  matched  by  the  Yoruba  proverb  that  '  ashes 
fly  back  in  the  face  of  their  thrower.'  Or  the  tendency 
of  travellers  to  exaggerate  or  tell  lies,  impressed  as  it 
has  been  on  all  human  experience,  is  also  confirmed 
by  the  Oji  proverb,  that  '  he  who  travels  alone  tells 
lies.'  And  the  universal  belief  in  the  ultimate  ex- 
posure of  falsehood  conveyed  in  such  proverbs  as 
the  Arabian,  '  The  liar  is  short-lived  ; '  the  Persian,. 


92  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

1  Liars  have  bad  memories  ; '  or  the  still  more  expressive 
Italian  saying,  that '  the  liar  is  sooner  caught  than  a 
cripple,'  finds  itself  corroborated  by  the  Wolof  proverb, 
that  '  lies,  though  many,  will  be  caught  by  Truth  as 
soon  as  she  rises  up.'  Even  in  Afghanistan,  where  it 
is  said  that  no  disgrace  attaches  to  lying  per  se,  and 
where  lying  is  called  an  honest  man's  wings,  while 
truth  can  only  be  spoken  by  a  strong  man  or  a  fool, 
there  is  also  a  proverb  with  the  moral,  that  the  career 
of  falsehood  is  short.1 

That  '  hope  is  the  pillar  of  the  world,'  that  '  it  is 
the  heart  which  carries  one  to  hell  or  heaven,'  or  that 
1  preparation  is  better  than  after-thought ' — all  expe- 
riences of  the  Kanuri,  a  Moslem  tribe,  who  think  it  a 
personal  adornment  to  cut  each  side  of  their  face  in 
twenty  places — shows  that  there  is  no  necessary  con- 
nection between  general  savagery  and  an  absence  of 
moral  culture.  The  natives  of  New  Zealand,  with  all 
their  barbarity,  had  in  common  use  a  saying  which 
were  a  desirable  maxim  for  European  diplomacy  : 
*  When  you  are  on  friendly  terms,  settle  your  disputes 
in  a  friendly  way ;  when  you  are  at  war,  redress  your 
injuries  by  violence.' 2  Even  the  Fijians  would  say 
that  an  unimproved  day  was  not  to  be  counted,  and 
that  no  food  was  ever  cooked  by  gay  clothes  and 

1  For  a  collection  of  Pashto  proverbs   see  Thornburn's  Afghan 
frontier,  1876. 

2  Sir  G.  Grey,  Polynesian  Mythology,  p.  21. 


SOME  SAVAGE   PROVERBS,  93 

frivolity.1  A  good  Ashantee  proverb  warns  people 
not  to  speak  ill  of  their  benefactors,  by  forbidding 
them  to  call  a  forest  a  shrubbery  that  has  once  given 
them  shelter.  The  proverbs  already  quoted  from  Yo- 
ruba  teach  the  same  lesson,  nor  would  it  be  difficult 
to  add  many  more,  all  proving  the  existence  among 
savages  of  a  morality  identical  in  its  main  features 
with  that  of  the  higher  group  of  nations  to  which  we 
ourselves  belong,  interpenetrated  as  it  has  been  for  ages 
with  the  philosophies  and  religions  of  the  civilised 
East. 

A  similar  testimony  to  the  intellectual  powers 
of  savages  is  afforded  by  their  proverbs,  though  of 
course  the  argument  is  only  a  suggestive  one  from 
tribes  whose  language  has  been  well  studied  to  others 
not  so  well  known.  That  the  Soudan  negroes  are  on 
a  higher  level  of  general  culture  than  many  savages 
of  other  islands  or  continents  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  all  known  Africans  are  acquainted  with  the  art 
of  smelting  iron  and  converting  it  into  weapons  and 
utensils  ;  so  that  they  may  be  said  to  be  living  in 
the  iron  age,  and  thus,  materially  at  least,  are  more 
advanced  than  the  Botocudos  of  Brazil,  who  are  still 
in  the  age  of  polished  stone  implements.  From  the 
fact  alone  that  the  Yorubas  express  their  contempt 
for  a  stupid  man  by  saying  that  he  cannot  count  nine 
times  nine,  we  are  enabled  at  once  to  place  them 

1  Williams,  Fiji,  p.  97. 


94  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

above  tribes  whose  powers  of  numeration  fall  short  of 
such  readiness.  Hence  we  should  not  be  justified  in 
expecting  to  find  among  Australian  or  American 
aborigines  proverbs  of  so  high  an  intellectual  order 
as  abound  in  Africa,  of  which  the  following  may 
be  selected  as  samples  : — 

Were  no  elephant  in  the  jungle  the  buffalo  would  be  large  ; 

or — 

The  dust  of  the  buffalo  is  lost  in  that  of  the  elephant. 
A  crab  does  not  bring  forth  a  bird. 
Two  small  antelopes  beat  a  big  one. 
Two  crocodiles  do  not  live  in  one  hole. 
A  child  can  crush  a  snail,  but  not  a  tortoise. 
A  razor  cannot  shave  itself. 
You  cannot  stop  the  sun  by  standing  before  it. 
If  you  like  honey,  do  not  fear  the  bees. 
When  a  fish  is  killed  its  tail  is  inserted  in  its  own  mouth. 
(Said  of  people  who  reap  the  reward  of  their  deeds.) 

The  Zulus,  speaking  of  the  uncertainty  of  a  result,  say, 
'  It  is  not  known  what  calf  the  cow  will  have  ; ' l  and 
when  the  Fanteestell  you  to  '  cross  the  river  before  you 
abuse  the  crocodile,' 2  there  is  no  difficulty  in  trans- 
lating their  meaning  into  English.  In  all  these 
proverbs  it  is  obvious  how  the  facts  of  every-day  life 
have  readily  served  everywhere  as  the  basis  of  intel- 
lectual advancement,  and  how  similar  lessons  have 
everywhere  been  drawn  from  the  observation  of 
similar  occurrences. 

Leaving  now  the  analogy  between    African  and 

1  Callaway,  ii.  171.  *  Burton,  Mission  to  Dahoine,  ii. 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  95 

European  proverb-lore,  which  the  uniformity  of  moral 
experiences  and  the  observation  of  similar  laws  of 
nature  sufficiently  account  for,  let  us  endeavour  to  find 
among  civilised  nations  any  proverbs  which,  by  the 
figures  involved  in  them  or  their  likeness  to  savage 
maxims,  seem  to  bear  a  distinct  impression  of  a 
barbaric  coinage.  One  French  proverb  may  almost 
•certainly  be  so  explained.  It  is,  for  instance,  well 
known  that  the  lower  races  very  generally  account  for 
eclipses  of  either  sun  or  moon  by  supposing  them 
to  be  the  victims  of  the  fury  or  voracity  of  some  ill- 
disposed  animal,  whom  they  try  to  divert  by  every 
horrible  noise  they  can  produce,  or  by  any  weapon 
they  have  learnt  to  fashion.  A  typical  instance  of 
this  was  the  belief  of  the  Chiquitos  of  South  America 
that  the  moon  was  hunted  across  the  sky  by  dogs, 
who  tore  her  in  pieces  when  they  caught  her,  till 
driven  off  by  the  Indian  arrows.  It  has  been  sug- 
gested that  the  French  proverb,  '  Dieu  garde  la'  lune 
des  loups,'  said  in  deprecation  of  a  dread  of  remote 
danger,  is  a  survival  of  a  similar  rude  philosophy  of 
nature  which  is  still  prevalent  in  the  capital  of  Turkey, 
and  in  the  days  of  St.  Augustine  was  current  over 
Europe.1 

Another  instructive  set  of  proverbs  may  be  ad- 
duced to  show  how  the  social  philosophy  current  in 
the  savage  state  may  survive  in  contemporary  expres- 

1  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  5.  333. 


96  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

sions  of  modern  Europe.  In  Africa,  where,  speaking 
generally,  a  man's  wife  has  no  better  status  in  society 
than  that  which  attaches  to  his  slave  or  his  ox,  and 
a  son  has  been  known  to  wager  his  own  mother 
against  a  cow,  we  cannot  be  astonished  at  finding  in 
vogue  proverbs  strongly  depreciatory  of  the  worth  of 
the  female  sex.  Thus  a  wise  Kanuri  is  cautioned, 
that  if  a  woman  shall  speak  to  him  two  words,  he 
shall  take  one  and  leave  the  other ;  nor  should  he 
give  his  heart  to  a  woman,  if  he  would  live,  for  a 
woman  never  brings  a  man  into  the  right  way.  So, 
too,  Pashto  proverbs  say  contemptuously,  that  a 
woman's  wisdom  is  under  her  heel,  and  that  she  is 
well  only  in  the  house  or  in  the  grave.  The  same 
feeling  is  endorsed  by  the  Persians,  who  declare  that 
both  women  and  dragons  are  best  out  of  the  world, 
classing  the  former  with  horses  and  swords  among 
their  by-words  of  unfaithfulness. 

The  literatures  of  all  countries  are  strongly  tinged 
with  sentiments  of  the  same  unjust  nature.  Even  the 
French  say  that  a  man  of  straw  is  worth  a  woman  of 
gold,  though  their  proverb,  '  Ce  que  femme  veut,  Dieu 
le  veut,'  is  as  true  as  it  is  a  witty  variation  of  the  well- 
known  democratic  formula.  The  Italians  have  made 
the  shrewd  observation,  that,  whilst  with  men  every 
mortal  sin  is  venial,  with  women  every  venial  sin  is 
mortal;  but  no  language  has  anything  worse  than 
this,  that  as  both  a  good  horse  and  a  bad  horse  need 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS,  97 

the  spur,  so  both  a  good  woman  and  a  bad  woman 
need  the  stick. 

It  is,  however,  in  Germany  that  the  character  of 
women  has  suffered  most  from  the  shafts  of  that  other 
half  of  the  community,  which  (it  might  be  complained) 
has  as  unfair  a  monopoly  of  making  proverbs  as  it 
has  of  making  laws.  The  humorous  saying,  that  there 
are  only  two  good  women  in  the  world,  one  of  whom 
is  dead  and  the  other  not  to  be  found,  contains  the 
key  to  the  common  national  sentiment.  A  woman  is 
compared  to  good  fortune  in  her  partiality  for  fools,  and 
to  wine  in  her  power  to  make  them.  Like  a  glass,  she  is 
in  hourly  danger  ;  and,  like  a  priest,  she  never  forgets. 
Her  vengeance  is  boundless,  and  her  mutability  find  its 
only  parallel  in  nature  in  the  uncertain  skies  of  April. 
Her  affections  change  every  moment,  like  luck  at 
cards,  the  favour  of  princes,  or  the  leaves  of  a  rose ; 
and  though  you  will  never  find  her  wanting  in  words, 
there  is  not  a  needle-point's  difference  betwixt  her 
yea  and  her  nay.  She  only  keeps  silence  where  she 
is  ignorant,  and  it  is  as  fruitless  to  try  to  hold  a  woman 
at  her  word  as  an  eel  by  its  tail.  Her  advice,  like  corn 
sown  in  summer,  may  perhaps  turn  out  well  once  in 
seven  years  ;  but  wherever  there  is  mischief  brewing 
in  the  world,  rest  assured  that  there  is  a  woman  and 
a  priest  at  the  bottom  of  it.  Every  daughter  of  Eve 
would  rather  be  beautiful  than  good,  and  may  be 
caught  as  surely  by  gold  as  a  hare  by  dogs  or  a 

H 


98  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS, 

gentleman  by  flattery.  Even  in  the  house  she  should 
be  allowed  no  power,  for  where  a  woman  rules  the 
devil  is  chief  servant ;  whilst  two  women  in  the  same 
house  will  agree  together  like  two  cats  over  a  mouse 
or  two  dogs  over  a  bone. 

Spanish  experience  on  this  subject  coincides  with 
the  Teutonic,  but  without  the  expenditure  of  nearly  so 
much  spleen,  and  with  several  glimpses  of  a  happier 
experience.  What  can  be  worse  than  this :  '  Beware 
of  a  bad  woman,  nor  put  any  trust  in  a  good  one ; '  or 
sadder  than  this:  'What  is  marriage,  mother?  Spin- 
ning, childbirth,  and  crying,  daughter '  ?  Yet  the 
Spanish  woman,  as  hard  to  know  as  a  melon,  as  little 
to  be  trusted  as  a  magpie,  as  fickle  as  the  wind  or  as 
fortune,  as  ready  to  cry  as  a  dog  to  limp,  in  labour  as 
patient  as  a  mule,  is  not  so  destitute  as  the  German 
of  any  redeeming  qualities  for  her  failings.  The 
Spaniard  is  taught  to  believe  that  with  a  good  wife  he 
may  bear  any  adversity,  and  that  he  should  believe 
nothing  against  her  unless  absolutely  proved.  It  is 
also  in  remarkable  contrast  to  the  experiences  of 
other  countries,  that  in  Spain  it  should  have  passed  into 
a  proverb,  that  whilst  an  unmarried  man  advocates 
a  daily  beating  for  a  wife,  as  soon  as  he  marries  he 
takes  care  of  his  own. 

Female  talkativeness  appears  also  to  be  a  subject 
of  lament  all  over  the  world,  from  our  own  island,  where 
a  woman's  tongue  proverbially  wags  like  a  lamb's  tail, 


SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS.  99 

to  the  Celestial  Empire,  where  it  is  likened  to  a  sword, 
never  suffered  by  its  owner  to  rust.  Regard  not  a 
woman's  words,  says  the  Hindoo ;  and  the  African 
also  is  warned  against  trusting  his  secrets  even  to 
his  wife.  The  Spaniard  believes  that  he  has  only  to 
tell  a  woman  what  he  would  wish  to  have  published 
in  the  market-place ;  and  all  languages  have  sayings 
to  the  same  effect.  The  Scotch  divine  who,  before  the 
Session,  defended  his  heresy  that  women  would  find  no 
place  in  heaven,  by  the  text, '  There  was  silence  in  heaven 
for  about  the  space  of  half  an  hour,'  only  expressed 
a  sentiment  of  universal  currency  over  the  world. 

The  proverbs  collected  from  the  lower  races  are 
still  very  few,  when  compared  with  the  immense  mass 
of  those  from  nations  with  whose  literature  we  are 
more  familiar.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
missionaries  and  travellers  should  have  been  first 
struck  by,  and  first  given  us  information  about, 
matters  more  directly  challenging  their  notice  than 
phrases  in  common  use,  for  a  real  knowledge  of  which 
the  most  favourable  conditions  of  a  prolonged  intimacy 
are  obviously  requisite.  The  large  collection  of  such 
proverbs  from  West  Africa  alone,  revealing  as  they 
do  an  elevation  of  feeling  and  a  clearness  of  intel- 
ligence which  other  facts  of  their,  social  life  would 
never  have  led  us  to  suspect,  point  at  the  possi- 
bility of  such  collections  elsewhere  largely  modifying 
our  present  views  concerning  other  savage  tribes. 


ioo  SOME  SAVAGE  PROVERBS. 

They  at  least  should  teach  us  caution  against  accepting 
the  conclusions  which  some  writers  have  drawn  from 
their  study  of  savage  languages,  when,  from  the  absence 
or  loss  in  a  dialect  of  such  words  as  '  love '  or '  gratitude,' 
they  proceed  to  explain,  on  the  hypothesis  of  degra- 
dation, that  rude  state  of  existence  which  is  denoted 
by  the  word  '  savage,'  and  which  there  are  abundant 
reasons  for  supposing  was  really  the  primitive  germ, 
out  of  which  all  subsequent  civilisation  has  been  un- 
folded. '  Were,'  says  Archbishop  Trench,  '  the  savage 
the  primitive  man,  we  should  then  find  savage  tribes 
furnished,  scantily  enough  it  might  be,  with  the  ele- 
ments of  speech,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  with  its  fruitful 
beginnings,  its  vigorous  and  healthful  germs.  But 
what  does  their  language  on  close  inspection  prove  ? 
In  every  case  what  they  are  themselves,  the  remnant 
and  ruin  of  a  better  and  a  nobler  past.  Fearful  indeed 
is  the  impress  of  degradation  which  is  stamped  on  the 
language  of  the  savage — more  fearful,  perhaps,  even 
than  that  which  is  stamped  upon  his  form.' l  Yet, 
whatever  may  be  the  case  with  some  tribes,  who  may 
be  shown  historically  to  have  fallen  from  a  higher  state 
(and  such  are  the  exceptions),  at  least  the  languages 
spoken  in  Africa  bear  no  such  '  fearful  impress  of  de- 
gradation '  as  are  .declared  to  be  traceable  in  every  case, 
if  we  may  judge  of  a  language  by  the  thoughts  which  it 
expresses  rather  than  by  the  words  which  it  contains. 

1  Trench,  On  the  Study  of  Words,  p.  17. 


101 


IV. 

SAVAGE   MORAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

LUCRETIUS,  in  his  retrospect  of  prehistoric  times, 
imagines  primeval  man  as  unpossessed  of  any  moral 
law,  and  is  at  pains  to  explain  how,  as  men  were  once 
ignorant  of  the  property  of  either  fire  to  warm  or  of 
skins  to  cover  them,  so  once  there  was  a  time  when 
no  moral  restraints  affected  the  relations  between 
man  and  man.1  Across  the  Atlantic  we  find  the  same 
strain  of  thought  in  the  myths,  common  in  many 
different  stages  of  progress,  of  those  culture  heroes 
who  had  come  long  ago  to  teach  men  the  arts  and 
virtues  of  life,  and  had  left  their  names  to  be  wor- 
shipped by  a  grateful  posterity.  The  Peruvian  le- 
gend, that  moral  law  was  unknown  until  the  Sun 
sent  two  of  his  children  to  raise  humanity  from  their 
animal  condition,  coincides  with  the  modern  hypothe- 
sis that  the  morality  of  the  cave-men  resembled  very 

1  •'  Nee  commune  bonum  poterant  spectare  nee  ullis 

Moribus  inter  se  scierant  nee  legibus  uti.' — V.  956. 
So  Virgil,  yf?».,  viii.  317. 


102  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

much  that  of  the  cave-bear  ;  so  that  it  becomes  a 
subject  worthy  of  inquiry  whether  any  human  com- 
munities ever  have  lived,  or  are  actually  living,  with 
no  more  idea  of  moral  right  and  wrong  than  is 
necessary  for  the  social  harmony  of  a  wolf-pack  or  a 
wasp's  nest ;  whether,  in  short,  what  to  the  Roman  was 
a  matter  of  speculation,  or  to  the  American  of  legend, 
can  fairly  become  for  us  one  of  science. 

The  Shoshones  of  North  America,  some  of  whom 
are  said  to  have  built  absolutely  no  dwellings,  but  to 
have  lived  in  caves  and  among  the  rocks,  or  burrowed 
like  reptiles  in  the  ground ;  or  the  Cochinis,  who 
resorted  at  night  for  shelter  to  caverns  and  holes  in 
the  ground,  may  be  taken  as  the  best  representatives 
of  the  ancient  cave-dwellers,  and  the  nearest  known 
approach  to  communities  living  in  the  state  pre- 
supposed by  the  legends  of  most  latitudes.1  Cali- 
fornians  generally  are  said  to  have  had  'no  morals, 
nor  any  religion  worth  calling  such ; '  yet  even  the 
Shoshones  knew,  like  so  many  other  American  tribes, 
how  to  ratify  either  a  treaty  or  a  bargain  by  the 
ceremony  of  smoking,  and  used  shell-money  as  an 
instrument  of  barter.  But  some  moral  notions  must 
enter  into  the  rudest  kind  of  barter,  and  barter  was 
known  to  the  ancient  cave-dwellers  of  Perigord,  just 
as  it  is  to  the  lowest  contemporary  savage  tribes. 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North  America,  i. 
426,  560. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  103 

Rock  crystal  and  Atlantic  shells,  found  among  the 
remains  of  men,  tigers,  and  bears,  in  the  caves  of 
Perigord,  could,  it  is  argued,  only  have  got  thither  by 
barter ;  so  that  the  earliest  human  beings  we  have 
record  of  must  have  possessed  at  least  so  much 
morality  as  is  necessary  for  commerce.1 

As  regards  existing  savages,  evidence  as  to  their 
moral  ideas  can  only  be  sought  in  incidental  allusion 
to  their  customs,  penalties,  beliefs,  or  myths,  never 
in  chapters  expressly  devoted  to  the  delineation  of 
their  moral  character.  Not  only  do  such  delineations 
by  different  writers  conflict  hopelessly  with  one  another, 
but  inconsistencies  abound  in  the  accounts  of  the  same 
writer,  as,  for  instance,  where  Cranz  describes  Green- 
landers  as  mild  and  peaceable,  and  a  few  pages  further 
on  as  '  naturally  of  a  murderous  disposition.'  The 
value  of  Cranz'  evidence  is  marred  by  the  fact  that 
he  writes  expressly  to  rebut  the  Deistic  idea  of  a 
natural  morality  existing  by  the  light  of  reason  and 
independent  of  Revelation  ;  and  the  evidence  of  other 
writers,  whenever  a  long  residence  among  savages 
entitles  them  to  speak  with  any  authority  at  all,  is 
spoilt  by  their  several  temptations  to  bias.  Whether 
the  temptation  be  to  enliven  a  book  of  travel,  to  in- 
culcate the  need  and  enhance  the  merit  of  missionary 
labours,  or  to  illustrate  the  uniformity  of  moral  percep- 

1  Peschel,  Races  of  Man,  pp.  39,  209. 


104  SAVAGE  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

tions  and  the  universality  of  certain  moral  laws,  in 
any  case  we  are  exposed  to  the  error  of  mistaking  for 
habitual  what  is  really  peculiar,  and  of  misunder- 
standing the  indications  of  facts  which  are  as  often 
anomalous  as  they  are  illustrative. 

The  way,  also,  in  which  the  love  of  theory  may 
give  rise  to  unjustifiable  credulity  or  even  to  absolute 
misstatement  may  be  exemplified  from  the  common 
story  of  the  Bushman  who  spoke  with  absolute  un- 
concern of  having  murdered  his  brother,  or  of  the 
other  Bushman  who  gave  as  an  instance  of  his  idea  of 
a  good  action,  stealing  some  one  else's  wife,  and  of  a 
bad  one,  losing  in  the  same  way  his  own.  According 
to  the  original  authority,  the  Bushmen  who  were 
questioned,  to  test  their  intelligence,  on  a  few  moral 
points,  and  especially  on  what  they  considered  good 
actions  and  what  bad,  belonged  to  a  kraal  of  extremely 
poor,  half-starved  Bushmen,  seemingly '  the  outcasts  of 
the  Bushmen  race  ; '  the  interpreter,  through  whom 
Burchell  made  his  inquiries,  said  he  could  not  make 
them  understand  what  he  said,  and  to  the  specific 
question  about  good  and  bad  actions  they  made  no  reply, 
the  missionary  himself  adding,  as  comment,  that '  their 
not  understanding  it  must  have  been  either  pretended 
stupidity  or  a  wilful  misrepresentation  by  the  inter- 
preter.' This  same  interpreter  is  suspected  by  Bur- 
chell, in  the  very  same  page,  of  such  misrepresentation, 
or  of  actual  invention  in  respect  of  the  story  of  the 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  105 

murder — a  story  which,  if  true,  adds  the  missionary, 
would  have  justified  him  in  saying,  Here  are  men  who 
know  not  right  from  wrong.  Yet  both  these  stories 
have  been  quoted  to  exemplify  the  state  of  the  moral 
destitution  of  the  lower  races.1 

The  fear  of  incurring  the  ill-will  of  his  fellow- 
beings  or  of  those  invisible  spirits  disposed  more  or 
less  hostilely  towards  him  and  everywhere  surround- 
ing him,  must  have  sufficed,  even  for  prehistoric  man, 
to  have  marked  out  certain  acts  as  less  advisable  than 
others,  and  so  far  as  wrong.  The  instinct  to  repel  or 
revenge  personal  injuries,  and  the  instinct  to  appease 
the  unknown  forces  of  nature,  neither  of  which,  be  it 
assumed,  acted  less  energetically  in  the  past  than  the 
present,  must  have  always  contributed  to  rank  certain 
sets  of  actions  as  better  to  be  avoided.  Personal  or 
tribal  well-being  has  probably  always  supplied  a 
sufficiently  defined  moral  standard,  sufficiently  de- 
fended by  real  or  fanciful  sanctions.  So  suggests 
theory ;  and  in  point  of  fact  a  savage  tribe  is  as 
difficult  to  find  as  it  is  to  imagine,  without  a  sense  of 
a  difference  in  the  quality  of  actions,  arising  from  a 
difference  in  their  likely  consequences  to  themselves. 

The  fear  of  revenge   from  a  man's  survivors  or 


1  Burchell,  Travels  in  Southern  Africa,  \.  456-62.  Compare 
Waitz,  Anthropologie  der  Naturvolker,  i.  376.  Also  Wuttke,  Geschithtc 
des  Heidenthums,  p.  164.  Ein  Brnde rmord  vntrde  von  ihnen  als  ehvas 
ganz  Harmloses  crzahlt. 


106  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

from  his  ghost  would  at  any  time  tend  to  make 
homicide  a  prominent  act  of  guilt.  The  vendetta, 
sometimes  carried  out  as  much  against  a  homicidal 
tiger  or  tree  as  against  a  man,  would  scarcely  ever  be 
not  dreaded  by  a  human  murderer  ;  and  the  associa- 
tions are  obvious  and  few  between  homicide  as  merely 
an  act  to  be  avenged  and  a  crime  to  be  avoided. 
Even  in  instances  where  bloodshed  seems  to  have 
left  but  an  external  stain,  affecting  the  hands  not  the 
heart  of  the  murderer,  and  calling  simply  for  purifica- 
tion by  washing,  the  presence  of  a  feeling  of  differ- 
ence may  be  detected  between  the  killing  of  a  man 
and  the  killing  of  a  bear.  But  the  dread  of  vengeance 
from  a  murdered  man's  ghost,  which  is  said  to  have 
acted  as  a  check  on  murder  among  the  Sioux  Indians, 
or  the  dread  of  such  vengeance  from  the  tutelary  gods 
of  the  deceased,  which  is  said  to  have  acted  as  a  check 
on  cannibalism  in  Samoa,  points  to  the  existence  of 
prudential  restraints  which  are  likely  not  to  have 
been  limited  in  their  operation  to  a  tribe  in  America 
nor  to  an  island  in  the  Pacific. 

But,  besides  spiritual  terrors,  secular  punishment 
has  a  well-defined  place  among  savages,  to  check 
the  extreme  indulgence  of  hatred  or  passion.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  any  savage  tribe  is  so  indifferent 
to  the  criminality  of  murder  as  to  be  destitute  of 
customary  penal  laws  to  prevent  or  punish  it.  These 
customs  vary  from  the  payment  of  a  slight  compen- 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  107 

sation,  payable  either  to  the  dead  man's  family  or  to 
the  tribal  chief,  down  to  actual  capital  punishment. 
Among  the  Northern  Californians  a  few  strings  of 
shell-money  compounded  for  the  murder  of  a  man, 
and  half  a  man's  price  was  paid  for  a  woman  ; 
banishment  from  the  tribe  being  sometimes  the 
penalty,  death  never.1  Among  the  Kutchin  tribes 
human  life  was  valued  at  forty  beaver  skins.2  Even  the 
Veddahs  insist  upon  compensation  to  survivors.  The 
Tunguse  Lapps,  with  whom  homicide  was  a  brave 
rather  than  a  shameful  act,  punished  nevertheless  a 
murderer  with  blows,  and  compelled  him  to  support 
the  dead  man's  relations.3  In  some  cases  a  slight 
penance  was  the  only  law  against  homicide.  A 
Yuma  Indian,  for  instance,  who  killed  a  tribesman 
had  perforce  to  starve  for  a  month  on  vegetables  and 
water,  bathing  frequently  during  the  day;  whilst  a 
Pima  who  killed  an  Apache  had  to  fast  for  sixteen 
days,  living  in  the  woods,  careful  meanwhile  to  keep 
his  eyes  from  the  sight  of  a  blazing  fire  and  his 
tongue  from  conversation.4 

The  custom,  moreover,  of  extending  to  a  whole 
family  the  guilt  of  an  individual  is  an  additional 
protection  to  human  life  among  savages.  In  the 
same  way  as,  till  lately,  English  law  avenged  itself 
on  the  suicide  who  had  escaped  its  jurisdiction,  by 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  i.  348.  *  Ibid.,  i.  130. 

*  Klemm,  C*lt*rgetcMcMe,  Hi.  69.          4  Bancroft,  i.  520,  553. 


io8  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

punishing  the  criminal's  relations,  savage  custom 
satisfies  indignation  by  taking  any  member  of  a 
family  as  a  substitute  for  a  fugitive  criminal.  The 
Thlinkeet  Indians,  if  they  cannot  kill  the  actual 
murderer,  kill  one  of  his  tribe  or  family  instead.1 
'  An  Indian,'  says  Kane,  '  in  taking  revenge  for  the 
death  of  a  relative,  does  not,  in  all  cases,  seek  the 
actual  offender ;  as,  should  the  party  be  one  of  his 
own  tribe,  any  relative  will  do,  however  distant.'  '2 
Catlin  tells  the  story  how,  when  a  great  Sioux 
warrior,  the  Little  Bear,  had  been  shot  by  the  Dog, 
the  avengers  of  the  former,  failing  to  overtake  the 
Dog,  caught  and  slew  his  brother  instead,  notwith- 
standing that  he  was  a  man  much  esteemed  by  the 
tribe.3  If  a  Californian  criminal  escaped  to  a  sacred 
refuge  he  was  regarded  as  a  coward,  in  that  he 
diverted  to  a  relation  a  punishment  he  deserved  him- 
self.4 In  Samoa  not  only  the  murderer  but  all  his 
belongings  would  fly  to  another  village  as  a  city  of 
refuge,  for  in  Samoan  law  a  plaintiff  might  seek 
redress  from  '  the  brother,  son,  or  other  relative  of  the 
guilty  party.' 5  In  Australia  wide-spread  consternation 
followed  the  commission  of  a  crime,  especially  if  the 
culprit  escaped,  for  the  brothers  of  the  criminal  held 
themselves  quite  as  guilty  as  he  was,  and  only  persons 

1  Dall,  Alaska,  p.  416.       2  Kane,  Wanderings  of  an  Artist,  p.  115. 
1  Catlin,  North  American  Indians,  ii.  192.          *  Bancroft,  iii.  167. 
*  Turner,  Nineteen  Years  in  Polynesia,  p.  285. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  109 

unconnected  with  the  family  believed  themselves  safe.1 
In  the  Fiji  Islands  a  warrior  once  left  his  musket  in 
such  a  position  that  it  went  off  and  killed  two  persons. 
The  owner  of  the  musket  was  condemned  to  death  ; 
but,  as  he  fled  away,  the  strangulation  of  his  father 
instead  of  him  perfectly  satisfied  the  ends  of  justice.2 

The  Samoans,  as  far  back  as  it  was  possible  to 
trace,  had  had  customary  laws  for  the  prevention  of 
theft,  adultery,  assault,  and  murder,  and  the  penalties 
for  such  crimes  appeared  rather  to  have  grown  milder 
than  severer  with  time.  Not  only  this,  but  they  had 
penal  customs  for  such  wrong  acts  as  rude  conduct  to 
strangers,  pulling  down  of  fences,  spoiling  fruit  trees, 
or  calling  chiefs  by  opprobrious  epithets.  It  is  open 
to  doubt  whether  other  savage  tribes  had  not  equally 
good  safeguards  for  preventing  at  least  those  greater 
social  offences,  whose  immorality  furnishes  the  first 
principle  of  even  the  ethics  of  civilised  communi- 
ties. 

In  Fiji  the  criminality  of  actions  is  said  to  have 
varied  with  the  social  rank  of  the  offender,  murder 
by  a  chief  being  accounted  less  heinous  than  a  petty 
larceny  by  a  man  of  low  rank.  Theft,  adultery,  witch- 
craft, violation  of  a  tabu,  arson,  treason,  and  disrespect 
to  a  chief  were  among  the  few  crimes  regarded  as 
serious.  With  regard  to  murder,  we  are  told  (and  the 

1  Sir  G.  Grey,  Journals  in  Australia,  ii.  239. 

2  Williams,  Fiji. 


no  SAVAGE  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

passage  is  a  favourite  one  for  illustrating  the  extreme 
variability  of  moral  sentiment),  that  to  a  Fijian  shed- 
ding of  blood  was  '  no  crime,  but  a  glory,'  and  that 
to  be  an  acknowledged  murderer  was  'the  object 
of  his  restless  ambition.'  In  a  similar  strain  it  has 
been  said,  that  in  New  Zealand  intentional  murder 
was  either  very  meritorious  or  of  no  consequence; 
the  latter  if  the  victim  were  a  slave,  the  former  if  he 
belonged  to  another  tribe.  The  malicious  destruction 
of  a  man  of  the  same  tribe  was,  however,  rare,  the 
lex  talionis  alone  applying  to  or  checking  it ; '  and  it 
is  probable  that  this  reservation  in  favour  of  native 
New  Zealand  should  be  made  for  all  cases  where 
murder  is  spoken  of  as  a  trivial  matter.  Whenever 
murder  is  spoken  of  as  no  crime,  reference  seems 
generally  made  to  murder  outside  the  tribe,  so  that 
from  the  circumstances  of  savage  life  it  resolves  itself 
into  an  act  of  ordinary  hostility;  or  if  the  reference  is 
to  murder  within  the  tribe,  it  is  to  murder  sanctioned 
by  necessity,  custom,  or  superstition.  The  Carrier 
Indians,  who  did  not  think  murders  worth  confessing 
when  they  confessed  other  crimes  of  their  lives,  yet 
regarded  the  murder  of  a  fellow-tribesman  as  something 
quite  senseless,  and  the  man  who  committed  such  a 
deed  had  to  absent  himself  till  he  could  pay  the  relatives, 
since  at  home  he  was  only  safe  if  a  chief  lent  him  the 

1  Old  New  Zealand.     By  a  Pakeha  Maori,  p.  105. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  in 

refuge  of  his  tent  or  of  one  of  his  garments.1  '  A 
murder/  says  Sproat,  '  if  not  perpetrated  on  one  of  his 
own  tribe,  or  on  a  particular  friend,  is  no  more  to  an 
Indian  than  the  killing  of  a  dog.'  The  sutteeism  and 
parenticide,  which  missionaries  describe  as  murders, 
are,  from  the  savage  point  of  view,  rather  acts  of 
mercy,  being  intimately  connected  with  their  ideas  of 
future  existence,  to  which  it  is  neither  fair  nor  scien- 
tific to  apply  the  phraseology  and  associations  of 
Christian  morality.2 

Different  tribes  have  evolved  different  institutions 
for  the  prevention  of  wrongs,  which  supplement  to  a 
large  extent  the  absence  of  fixed  legal  remedies. 

In  Greenland  there  was  the  singing  combat,  in 
which  anyone  aggrieved,  dancing  to  the  beat  of  a 
drum  and  accompanied  by  his  partisans,  recited  at 
a  public  meeting  a  satirical  poem,  telling  ludicrous 
stories  of  his  adversary,  and  obliged  to  listen  after-' 
wards  to  similar  abuse  of  himself,  till,  after  a  long 
succession  of  charges  and  retorts,  the  assembled  spec- 
tators gave  the  victory  to  one  of  the  combatants. 
These  combats,  says  Cranz,  served  to  remind  debtors 
of  the  duty  of  repayment,  to  brand  falsehood  and 
detraction  with  infamy,  to  punish  fraud  and  injustice, 


1  Harmon's  Journal,  pp.   299,  300. 

2  Seemann  says  of  Fijian  cruelty  (Vitit  p.  192)  :  'Affection  for  the 
departed — of  course   mistaken  affection — prompted  their  relatives   or 
friends  to  dispatch  widows  at  the  time  of  their  husband's  burial,'  &c. 


ii2  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  above  all  to  overwhelm  adultery  with  contempt. 
The  fear  of  incurring  public  disgrace  at  these  combats 
was,  with  the  fear  of  retaliation  for  injury,  the  only 
motive  to  virtue  which  the  writer  allows  to  the  natives 
of  Greenland. 

In  Samoa  thieves  could  be  scared  from  planta- 
tions by  cocoa-nut  leaflets  so  plaited  as  to  convey  an 
imprecation ;  and  a  man  who  saw  an  artificial  sea- 
pike  suspended  from  a  tree  would  fear,  that,  if  he 
accomplished  his  theft,  the  next  time  he  went  fishing 
a  real  sea-pike  would  dart  up  and  wound  him  mortally. 
Images  of  a  similar  nature,  conveying  imprecations  of 
disease,  death,  lightning,  or  a  plague  of  rats,  seem 
also  to  have  been  effective  restraints  upon  thievish 
propensities ; 1  and  in  the  Tonga  Islands  fruits  and 
flowers  were  tabooed,  that  is,  preserved,  by  plaited 
representations  of  a  lizard  or  a  shark.2  It  is  likely 
that  a  similar  meaning  attached  in  Africa  to  'certain 
branches  of  trees  which,  stuck  into  the  ground  in  a 
particular  manner,  with  bits  of  broken  pottery,  were 
enough  to  prevent  the  most  determined  robber  from 
crossing  a  threshold.3  Similar  tabu  marks  were  seen 
on  some  rocks  at  Tahiti,  placed  there  to  prevent 
people  fishing  or  getting  shells  from  the  Queen's  pre- 
serves ; 4  and  it  is  possible  that  the  origin  of  all  tabu 

1  Turner,  Polynesia,  pp.  294-5.  *  Mariner,  ii.  233. 

*  Pinkerton,  xvi.  595,  from  Froyart's  Loango. 

4  Fitzroy,  Voyages  of '  Adventure '  and  '  Beagle, '  ii.  574. 


SAVAGE  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY.  113 

customs  may  have  lain  in  the  supposed  efficacy  of 
symbolical  imprecation. 

In  New  Zealand  the  institution  of  muru,  or  the 
legalized  enforcement   of  damages   by  plunder,  ex- 
tended the   idea   of  sinfulness   even    to   involuntary 
wrongs  or  accidental  sufferings.     Involuntary  homi- 
cide is  said  to  have  involved  more  serious  consequences 
than  murder   of  malice  prepense  ;    and   if  a  man's 
child  fell  into  the  fire,  or  his  canoe  was  upset  and 
himself  nearly  drowned,  he  was  not  only  cudgelled 
and  robbed,  but  he  would  have  deemed  it  a  personal 
slight  not  to  have  been  so  treated.1     To  escape  from 
drowning  was  indeed  a  common  sin  in  savage  life,  for 
was  it  not  to  escape  the  just  wrath  of  the  Water  Spirit, 
and    perhaps   to  turn  it  upon    some   one   else?     In 
Kamschatka  so  heinous  was  the  sin  of  cheating  the 
Water  Spirit  of  his  prey,  by  escape  from  drowning, 
that  no  one  would  receive  such  a  sinner  into  his  house, 
speak  to  him,  nor  give  him  food :  he  became,  in  short, 
socially  dead.     Fijians  who  escape  shipwreck  are  sup- 
posed to  be  saved  in  order  to  be  eaten,  and  Williams 
tells,  how  on  one  occasion  fourteen  of  them  who  lost 
their  canoe  at  sea  only  escaped  becoming  food  for 
sharks  to  become  food  for  their  friends  on  shore.    If  the 
Koossa  Kafirs  see  a  person  drowning,  or  indeed  in  any 
danger  of  his  life,  they  either  run  away  from  the  spot 

1  Old  New  Zealand,  pp.  96-100. 

I 


114  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

or  pelt  the  victim  with  stones  as  he  dies.1  So  also 
with  death  by  fire :  if  an  Indian  falls  into  the  fire  or 
is  partially  burnt,  it  is  believed  that  the  spirits  of  his 
ancestors  pushed  him  into  the  flames  owing  to  his 
negligence  in  supplying  them  with  food.2  The 
custom  of  an  African  tribe  to  expel  from  their  com- 
munity anyone  bitten  by  a  zebra  or  an  alligator,  or 
even  so  much  as  splashed  by  the  tail  of  the  latter,  is 
evidently  related  to  the  same  idea.3 

Again,  however  much  Catlin's  assertion  that  self- 
denial,  torture,  and  immolation  were  constant  modes 
among  North  American  Indians  for  appealing  to  the 
Great  Spirit  for  countenance  and  forgiveness,  may 
overstate  the  truth,  it  is  remarkable  that  not  only 
penance  by  fasting  and  self-torture,  but  the  practice 
of  confession,  should  occur  in  the  lower  culture  as  a 
mode  of  moral  purification.  Confession  was  common 
not  only  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  but  among  widely  remote 
savage  tribes,  being  closely  connected  with  the  belief 
in  the  power  of  sin  to  cause,  and  of  priestcraft  to  cure, 
dangerous  sickness.  The  Carrier  Indians  of  North 
America  thought,  that  the  only  chance  of  recovery 
from  sickness  lay  in  a  disclosure  before  a  priest  of 
every  secret  crime  committed  in  life,  and  that  the  con- 
cealment of  a  single  fact  would  meet  with  the  punish- 

1  Lichtenstein,  i.  259.  2  Schoolcraft,  7.  T.,  i.  39. 

*  Livingstone,  Missionary  Travels  in  South  Africa,  p.  255. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  115 

ment  of  instantaneous  death.1  The  Samoan  Islanders 
believing  that  all  disease  was  due  to  the  wrath  of 
some  deity,  would  inquire  of  the  village  priest  the 
cause  of  sickness,  who  would  sometimes  in  such  cases 
command  the  family  to  assemble  and  confess.  At 
this  confessional  ceremony  each  member  of  the  family 
would  confess  his  crimes,  and  any  judgments  he  might 
have  invoked  in  anger  on  the  family  or  the  invalid 
himself;  long-concealed  crimes  being  often  thus 
disclosed.2  In  Yucatan,  confession,  introduced  by 
Cukulcan,  the  mythical  author  of  their  culture,  was 
much  resorted  to,  '  as  death  and  disease  were  thought 
to  be  direct  punishments  for  sins  committed.'  The 
natives  of  Cerquin,  in  Honduras,  confessed,  not  only 
in  sickness,  but  in  immediate  danger  of  any  kind,  or 
to  procure  divine  blessings  on  any  important  occasion. 
So  far  did  they  carry  it,  that,  if  a  travelling  party 
met  a  jaguar  or  puma,  each  would  commend  himself 
to  the  gods,  confessing  loudly  his  sins,  and  imploring 
pardon  ;  if  the  beast  still  advanced  they  would  cry 
out,  '  We  have  committed  as  many  more  sins  ;  do  not 
kill  us.'  3 

But  over  and  above  the  wrong  acts  from  which  re- 
straints lie  in  the  revenge  of  individuals,  in  punish- 
ment by  the  community,  or  in  artificial  restrictions, 

1  Harmon,  Journal,  p.  300.         2  Turner,  Polynesia,  p.  224. 
3  Bancroft,  iii.  486. ' 

I    2 


u6  SAVAGE  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY. 

there  is  a  large  class  of  acts,  defended  rather  by  spiri- 
tual than  secular  sanctions,  deriving  their  sinfulness 
from  pure  misconceptions  of  things,  and  constituting 
for  savages  by  far  the  larger  part  of  their  field  for 
right  and  wrong.  The  consciousness  of  having 
trodden  in  the  footstep  of  a  bear  would  be  as 
painful  to  a  Kamschadal  as  the  consciousness  of 
having  stolen,  the  possible  consequences  of  the  for- 
mer being  infinitely  more  dreadful.  Such  acts  as 
the  experience  of  primitive  times  has  thus  general- 
ized into  acts  provocative  of  unpleasant  expres- 
sions of  dissatisfaction  from  the  spiritual  world,  and 
so  far  as  sinful,  become  in  the  folk-lore  of  later 
date  acts  merely  unlucky  or  ominous.  The  feeling 
to  this  day  prevalent  in  parts  of  England  and  Ger- 
many, that  if  you  transplant  parsley  you  may  cause 
its  guardian  spirit  to  punish  you  or  your  relations 
with  death,  fairly  illustrates  how  the  wrongful  acts 
of  bygone  times  may  even  in  civilised  countries  con- 
tinue to  be  guarded  by  the  very  same  sanction  that 
gave  them  potency  in  the  days  of  savagery. 

Of  such  regulations  in  restraint  of  the  natural 
liberty  of  savage  tribes  let  it  suffice  to  give  some  in- 
stances of  sinful  acts  which  derive  all  their  associa- 
tions of  wrong  from  rude  notions  concerning  the 
nature  of  storms,  of  ancestors,  of  names,  and  of 
animals.  It  will  be  seen  that  in  some  cases  such 
superstitions  act  as  real  checks  to  real  wickedness ; 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  117 

though  the  connection  between  them  seems  purely 
accidental,  rather  than  the  result  of  any  intuitive  dis- 
crimination of  the  qualities  of  actions. 

As  English  sailors  will  refrain  from  whistling  at 
sea,  lest  they  should  provoke  a  storm,  so  the  Kams- 
chadals  account  many  actions  sinful  on  account  of 
their  storm-breeding  qualities.  For  this  reason  they 
will  never  cut  snow  from  off  their  shoes  with  a  knife 
out  of  doors,  nor  go  barefooted  outside  their  huts  in 
winter,  nor  sharpen  an  axe  or  a  knife  on  a  journey. 
The  Fuejian  natives  brought  away  by  Captain 
Fitzroy  felt  sure  that  anything  wrong  said  or  done 
caused  bad  weather,  especially  the  sin  of  shooting 
young  ducks.  They  declared  their  belief  in  an 
omniscient  Big  Black  Man,  who  had  his  living  among 
the  woods  and  mountains,  and  influenced  the  weather 
according  to  men's  conduct  ;  in  illustration  of  which 
they  told  a  story  of  a  murderer,  who  ascribed  to  the 
anger  of  this  being  a  storm  of  wind  and  snow  which 
followed  his  crime.1  In  Vancouver's  Island  there 
is  a  mountain,  the  sin  of  mentioning  which  in  pass- 
ing may  cause  a  storm  to  overturn  the  offender's 
canoe.2 

Prominent  among  the  moral  checks  of  savage  life 
is  the  fear  of  the  anger  of  the  dead.  Among  savages 
the  supposed  wishes  of  their  departed  friends,  or 

1  Fitzroy,  Voyages,  ii.  180. 

2  Sproat,  Scenes  and  Studies  of  Savage  Life,  p.  265. 


ii8  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

deified  forefathers,  operate  as  real  commands,  girt 
with  all  the  sanction  of  superstitious  terror,  and  cloth- 
ing the  most  fanciful  customs  with  all  the  obligatory 
feelings  of  morality.  A  New  Zealand  chief,  for  in- 
stance, would  expect  his  dead  ancestors  to  visit  him 
with  disease  or  other  calamity  if  he  let  food  touch 
any  part  of  his  body,  or  if  he  entered  a  dwelling  where 
food  hung  from  the  ceiling.1  The  wide  prevalence  of 
the  feeling  that  disease  and  death  are  due  to  the  dis- 
pleasure of  the  dead,  who  may  return  to  earth,  to 
reside  in  some  part  of  a  living  person's  body,  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  Samoan  custom  of  taking  valuable 
presents  as  a  last  expression  of  regard  to  the  dying,  or 
by  way  of  bribing  them  to  forego  their  incorporeal 
privilege  of  post-mortem  revenge.2  On  the  Gold 
Coast  also  friends  make  presents  to  the  dead  of  gold, 
brandy,  or  cloth,  to  be  buried  with  them  ;  just  as  in 
ancient  Mexico  all  classes  of  the  population  would  beg 
of  their  dead  king  to  accept  their  offerings  of  food, 
robes,  or  slaves,  which  they  vied  in  giving  him,  or  as 
the  Mayas  would  place  precious  gifts  or  ornaments 
near  or  upon  the  corpse  of  a  deceased  lord  of  a  pro- 
vince. So  the  Bodos,  presenting  food  at  the  graves 
of  their  relations,  would  pray,  saying,  'Take  and 
eat  ...  we  come  no  more  to  you,  come  no  more  to 
us.' 

1  Shortland,  Sotrthern  Districts  of  New  Zealand ',  p.  30. 

2  Turner,  Polynesia,  pp.  225,  236. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  119 

Proper  behaviour  with  regard  to  names  is  one  of 
the  most  important  points  of  savage  decorum.  The 
confusion,  amounting  almost  to  identification,  between 
a  person  and  his  name  is  one  of  the  most  signal  proofs 
of  the  power  of  language  over  thought.  As  Catlin's 
or  Kane's  Indian  pictures  were  thought  to  detract 
from  the  originals  something  of  their  existence,  giving 
the  painter  such  power  over  them  that  whilst  living 
their  bodies  would  sympathise  with  every  injury  done 
to  their  pictures,  and  when  dead  would  not  rest  in 
their  graves,  so  the  feeling  among  savages  is  strong 
that  the  knowledge  of  a  person's  name  gives  to 
another  a  fatal  control  over  his  destiny.  An  Indian 
once  asked  Kane  'whether  his  wish  to  know  his 
name  proceeded  from  a  desire  to  steal  it ; ' l  whilst 
with  the  Abipones  it  was  positively  sinful  for  anyone 
to  pronounce  his  own  name.  Kane  could  only  dis- 
cover Indians'  names  through  third  parties  ;  and  it  is 
curious  that  the  natives  of  one  of  the  Fiji  Islands  will 
never  tell  their  names  to  an  inquirer,  if  there  should 
be  anyone  else  to  answer  the  question.2  Hence  it  is 
that  the  highest  compliment  a  savage  can  pay  a 
person  is  to  exchange  names  with  him,  a  custom 
which  Cook  found  prevalent  at  Tahiti  and  in  the 
Society  Islands,  and  which  was  also  common  in 
North  America.3  Warriors  sometimes  take  the  name 

1  Kane,  p.  205.  *  Ibid.  ;  Seemann,  p.  190. 

1  Bancroft,  i.  245,  285,  438. 


120  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  a  slain  enemy,  from  the  same  motive  apparently 
which,  in  some  instances,  is  an  inducement  to  eat 
their  flesh,  namely,  to  appropriate  their  courage. 
The  Lapps  change  a  child's  baptismal  name,  if  it  falls 
ill,  rebaptizing  it  at  every  illness,  as  if  they  thought 
to  deceive  the  spirit  that  vexed  it  by  the  simple 
stratagem  of  an  alias ; 1  and  the  Californian  Shoshones, 
in  changing  their  names  after  such  feats  as  scalping 
an  enemy,  stealing  his  horses,  or  killing  a  grizzly 
bear,  had,  perhaps,  some  similar  idea  of  avoiding  re- 
taliation. Among  the  Chinook  Indians  near  relations 
often  changed  their  names,  lest  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  should  be  drawn  back  to  earth  by  often  hearing 
familiar  names  used. 

With  these  ideas  about  names  it  is  easy  to  under- 
stand how  especial  reverence  would  become  attached 
to  the  names  of  kings  or  dead  persons  whose  power 
to  punish  a  light  use  of  their  appellations  might  well 
be  deemed  exceptional.  On  accessions  to  royalty  in 
the  Society  Islands  all  words  resembling  the  king's 
name  were  changed,  and  any  person  bold  enough  to 
continue  the  use  of  the  superseded  terms  was  put  to 
death,  with  all  his  relations.2  From  a  similar  state 
of  thought  the  Abipones  invented  new  words  for  all 
things  whose  previous  names  recalled  a  dead  person's 
memory,  whilst  to  mention  his  name  was  '  a  nefarious 

1  Klemm,  Culturgeschichte,  iii.  78.  2  Cook,  Voyages,  iii.  158. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  121 

proceeding.'  l  In  Dahome  the  king's  name  must  be 
pronounced  with  bated  breath,  and  it  is  death  to 
utter  it  in  his  presence.2  The  degrees  of  guilt,  attached 
to  the  mention  of  a  dead  person,  arising  from  a  belief 
in  the  power  of  spoken  names  to  call  back  their 
owners,  vary  in  sinfulness  from  its  being  a  positive 
crime,  punishable  by  fine,  to  a  mere  rudeness,  to  be 
checked  in  the  young.  Among  the  Northern  Cali- 
fornians  it  was  one  of  the  most  strenuous  laws  that 
whoever  mentioned  a  dead  person's  name  should  be 
liable  to  a  heavy  fine,  payable  to  the  relatives.3  The 
tribe  of  Ainos  held  it  a  great  rudeness  to  speak  of 
the  dead  by  their  names ;  whilst  young  Ahts  are  in- 
stantly checked,  if  they  make  an  unthinking  use  of 
the  name  of  a  chief  that  has  been  relinquished  in 
memory  of  some  event  of  importance.4 

Several  causes  may  have  led  to  animal  worship. 
The  tendency  to  call  men  by  qualities  or  peculiarities 
in  them  fancifully  recalling  those  of  some  animal,  and 
the  tendency  to  apotheosize  distinguished  ancestors, 
thus  named  after  the  tiger  or  the  bear,  may  have  led 
to  a  confusion  of  thought  between  the  animal  and 
the  man,  till  the  divine  attributes,  once  attached  to 
the  individual,  became  transferred  to  the  species  of 

1  Dobritzhoffer,  Abipones,  ii.  203,  274. 

2  Burton,  Mission,  i.  231.  *  Bancroft,  ii.  357. 

4  Dall,  Alaska,  524.    For  instances  of  the  feeling  in  North  America 
see  Bancroft,  i.  205,  288,  544,  745  ;  Hi.  521,  522. 


122  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

animal  that  survived  him  in  constant  existence.  Or 
the  same  fancy,  which  sees  inspiration  in  an  idiot 
from  his  very  lack  of  common  reason,  may  have  at- 
tributed peculiar  wisdom  and  looked  with  peculiar 
awe  on  the  animal  world,  by  very  reason  of  its 
speechlessness.  Then,  again,  the  idea  that  the  bodies 
of  animals  may  be  the  depositories  of  departed  human 
souls  may  have  led  to  the  worship  of  certain  animals  : 
some  Californians  for  this  reason  refraining  from  the 
flesh  of  large  game,  because  it  is  animated  by  the 
souls  of  past  generations,  so  that  the  term  '  eater  of 
venison'  is  one  of  reproach  among  them.  Or  the 
prohibitions  of  shamans  may  have  produced  the 
result  in  some  cases :  the  Thlinkeet  Indians  being 
found,  for  this  reason,  abstinent  from  whale's  flesh  or 
blubber,  whilst  both  are  commonly  eaten  by  surround- 
ing tribes.  But,  whatever  the  original  causes  may  have 
been,  tribes  are  found  all  over  the  world  beset  with  a 
feeling  of  sinfulness  with  regard  to  the  injuring,  eating, 
or  in  any  way  offending  different  species  of  animals  ; 
of  which,  as  no  extreme  instance,  may  be  mentioned 
the  Fijian  custom  of  presenting  a  string  of  new  nuts, 
gathered  expressly,  to  a  land  crab,  'to  prevent  the 
deity  leaving  with  an  impression  that  he  was 
neglected,  and  visiting  his  remiss  worshippers  with 
drought,  dearth,  or  death.' 

Beyond,  however,  customs  or  ideas  in  prevention 
of  acts  prejudicial  to  their  real  or  supposed  welfare, 


SAVAGE  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY.  123 

savage  communities  appear  to  have  little  idea  of 
any  quality  in  actions  rendering  them  good  or  bad  in- 
dependently of  consequences.  Their  prayers,  their 
beliefs,  and  their  mythology,  alike  go  to  prove  this. 
That  they  will  pray  for  such  temporal  blessings  as 
health,  food,  rain,  or  victory,  but  not  for  such  moral 
gains  as  the  conquest  of  passion  or  a  truthful  dis- 
position, to  some  extent  justifies  the  inference  that 
moral  advancement  forms  no  part  of  their  code  of 
things  desirable.  Their  good  and  evil  spirit  or  spirits 
are  simply  distinguished,  where  they  are  distinguished 
at  all,  as  the  causes  respectively  of  things  agreeable  or 
disagreeable,  as  taking  sides  for  or  against  struggling 
humanity,  so  that  tribes  which  pay  and  sacrifice  to  the 
source  of  evil,  to  the  neglect  of  that  of  good,  cannot 
be  said  not  to  conform  to  reason.  Their  mythology, 
again,  owes  its  very  monotony  mainly  to  the  lack  of 
moral  interest  to  relieve  and  sustain  it.  As  Mr.  Grote, 
arguing  from  the  mythology  to  the  moral  feeling  of 
legendary  Greece,  observes,  that  such  a  sentiment  as 
a  feeling  of  moral  obligation  between  man  and  man 
was  '  neither  operative  in  the  real  world  nor  present 
to  the  imaginations  of  the  poets,'  so  it  may  be  said 
not  less  emphatically  of  extant  savage  mythology. 
The  Polynesian  idea  of  a  god,  it  has  been  well  said,  is 
mere  power  without  any  reference  to  goodness.  The 
divine  denizens  of  Avaiki  (the  Hades  of  the  Hervey 
Islands),  as  they  marry,  quarrel,  build,  and  live  just 


124  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

like  mortals,  so  they  murder,  drink,  thieve,  and  lie 
quite  in  accordance  with  terrestrial  precedents.1  The 
unethical  nature,  however,  of  savage  prayer  or  mytho- 
logy is  obviously  not  incompatible  with  the  practical 
recognition  of  certain  moral  distinctions  ;  in  the  same 
Hervey  Islands,  for  instance,  the  greatest  possible  sin 
was  to  kill  a  fellow-countryman  by  stealth,  instead  of 
in  battle.2 

Ideas,  again,  relating  to  a  future  state  and  the  de- 
pendence of  future  welfare  on  the  mode  of  life  spent  on 
earth,  though  they  would  seem  to  afford  some  insight 
into  the  moral  sentiments  of  those  holding  them,  in 
default  of  definition  of  the  good  or  bad  conduct  so 
rewarded  or  punished,  do  not  really  prove  much.  In 
the  following  instances,  which  offer  several  shades  of 
variety,  there  is  scarcely  any  attempt  at  moral  de- 
finition, and  the  native  belief  has,  perhaps,  been 
adulterated  by  Christian  influence.  The  Good  Spirit 
of  the  Mandans  dwelt  in  a  purgatory  of  cold  and 
frost,  where  he  punished  those  who  had  offended  him, 
before  he  would  admit  them  to  that  warmer  and 
happier  place,  where  the  Bad  Spirit  dwelt  and  sought 
to  seduce  the  happy  occupants.3  For  the  Charocs  of 
California  were  two  roads,  one  strewn  with  flowers, 
and  leading  the  good  to  the  bright  Western  land,  the 
other  bristling  with  thorns  and  briers,  and  leading 

1  Gill,  Myths  and  Songs  of  the  South  Pacific,  p.  154. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  38. 

*  Catlin,  North  American  Indians,  i.  157. 


SAVAGE  MORAL   PHILOSOPHY.  125 

the  wicked  to  a  place  full  of  serpents.  The  souls  of 
Chippewyans  drifted  in  a  stone  canoe  to  an  enchanted 
island  in  a  large  lake ;  if  the  good  actions  of  their  life 
predominated  they  were  wafted  safely  ashore  ;  but  if 
the  bad,  the  canoe  sank  beneath  their  weight,  leaving 
the  wretches  to  float  for  ever,  in  sight  of  their  lost 
and  nearly  won  felicity.  Wicked  Okanagans,  again, 
a  Columbian  tribe  (and  by  the  wicked  are  here 
specified  murderers  and  thieves),  went  to  a  place 
where  an  evil  spirit,  in  human  form,  with  equine  ears 
and  tail,  belaboured  them  with  a  stick.1  The  Fijian 
belief  appears  truer  to  savage  thought ;  for  whilst  such 
of  their  dead  as  succeeded  in  reaching  Mbula  were 
happy  or  not,  according  as  they  had  lived  so  as  to 
please  the  gods,  mortals  subjected  to  special  punish- 
ment were  persons  who  had  not  their  ears  bored, 
women  who  were  not  tattooed,  and  men  who  had  not 
slain  an  enemy.2 

Taking,  however,  these  instances  at  their  best, 
there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  good  or  bad,  re- 
warded or  punished  as  above  described,  were  really 
anything  more  than  those  who  on  earth  had  fought 
and  hunted  with  courage  or  cowardice.  Writers 
citing  such  beliefs  do  not  always  make  allowance  for 
the  difference  between  the  savage  and  the  civilised 

1  Bancroft,  iii.  519  ;  and  other  instances  in  the  same  work,  chapter 
xii. 

•  Williams,  Fiji,  p.  247. 


126  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

moral  standard.  The  code  to  be  observed,  says 
Schoolcraft,  in  order  for  the  soul  to  pass  safely  the 
stream  which  leads  to  the  land  of  bliss,  '  appears  to 
be,  as  drawn  from  their  funeral  addresses,  fidelity 
and  success  as  a  hunter  in  providing  for  his  family, 
and  bravery  as  a  warrior  in  defending  the  rights  and 
honour  of  his  tribe.  There  is  no  moral  code  regu- 
lating the  duties  and  reciprocal  intercourse  between 
man  and  man.'  1  And  if  the  good  American  Indians 
above  mentioned  were  distinguished  by  any  higher 
moral  attributes  than  those  of  mere  bravery  and 
activity,  it  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  fact  that, 
while  Mexican  civilisation  consigned  all  who  died 
natural  deaths,  good  and  bad  alike,  to  the  dull  repose 
of  Mictlan,  reserving  for  the  higher  pleasures  of  futurity 
those  who  met  their  deaths  in  war  or  water,  or  from 
lightning,  disease,  or  childbirth,  tribes  whose  culture 
stood  to  that  of  Mexico  as  far  removed  as  that  of 
Polynesia  from  that  of  Europe,  should  have  attained 
to  the  moral  belief  of  the  influence  of  earthly  conduct 
reaching  beyond  the  grave.2 

The  foregoing  brief  review  of  some  of  the  real 
evidence  on  the  subject  would  seem  to  indicate  the 
conclusion  that,  in  matters  of  morals,  savages  are 

1  Schoolcraft.  Indian  Tribes,  v.  403,  404. 

2  Dr.  Brinton  (p.  250)  says  that  no  ethical  bearing  was  assigned  to  the 
myth  of  the  future  by  the  red  race  till  they  were  taught  by  Europeans, 
and  that  all  Father  Brebeuf  could  find  was,  that  the  souls  of  suicides 
and  persons  killed  in  war  lived  apart  from  others  after  death. 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  127 

neither  so  low  as  they  have  been  painted  by  most 
writers  nor  so  blameless  as  they  have  been  portrayed 
by  some.  Their  faults,  such  as  their  vindictiveness, 
their  ingratitude,  or  their  mendacity,  might  be  pre- 
dicated as  easily  of  communities  the  most  advanced 
in  the  world  ;  nor,  in  the  face  of  the  great  neglect  of 
precision  of  language  in  all  narratives  of  travel,  can 
any  evidence  of  the  utter  ignorance  of  right  and  wrong 
among  any  tribe  lay  claim  to  the  smallest  scientific 
value.  Of  the  African  Yorubas,  whilst  one  writer 
asserts  that  they  are  not  only  covetous  and  cruel,  but 
'  wholly  deficient  in  what  the  civilised  man  calls  con- 
science,' of  the  same  people  another  says  that  they 
have  several  words  in  their  language  to  express  honour, 
and  '  more  proverbs  against  ingratitude  than  perhaps 
any  other  people.' l 

Perhaps  no  description  of  savage  character  is  fairer 
than  Mariner's  of  the  Tongan  Islanders.  '  Their  no- 
tions,' he  says,  '  in  respect  to  honour  and  justice  are 
tolerably  well-defined,  steady,  and  universal ;  but  in 
point  of  practice  both  the  chiefs  and  the  people,  taking 
them  generally,  are  irregular  and  fickle,  being  in  some 
respects  extremely  honourable  and  just,  and  in  others 
the  contrary,  as  a  variety  of  causes  may  operate.' 2 
But  the  justice  of  such  remarks  is  lost  in  their  vague- 
ness, and  their  impartial  generality  would  render  them 

1  Bo  wen,  Central  Africa,  p.  285. 

2  Mariner,  Tongan  Islands,  ii.  154. 


128  SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY. 

of  world-wide  rather  than  of  merely  local  or  insular 
application. 

If,  therefore,  in  consideration  of  the  unsatisfactory 
nature  of  the  direct  evidence,  we  resort  to  the  indirect 
for  the  materials  of  our  judgment,  we  shall  perhaps 
not  err  widely  from  the  truth  if  we  say  that  average 
savage  morality  coincides  very  much  with  that  of  any 
contemporary   remote  village  of  the  civilised  world, 
where  the  fear  of  retaliation  and  disgrace  is  the  chief 
preventive  of  great  wickedness,  and  the  natural  play 
of  the  social  affections  the  main  safeguard  of  good 
order.     The  statement  calls  for  but  few  limitations, 
that    wherever    travellers    have    explored,    or    mis- 
sionaries   taught,  they    have  been    able    to    detect 
customary  laws  regulating  the  relations  of  civil  life, 
the  orderly  transference  of  property  by  exchange  or 
inheritance,  no  less  than  the  fixed  succession  to  titles 
and  dignities.     They  have  found  not,  only  punishments 
for  the  prevention,  but  judicial  ordeals  for  the  detec- 
tion, of  crimes  ;  nor  is  it  possible  to  believe  that  such 
penal   laws   can   exist   without   ideas   of  wrongness 
attaching  to  the  deeds  they  prohibit.     But,  besides 
the   secular   absolution    involved  in    legal    penalties, 
they  have  found  not  unfrequently  a  kind  of  spiritual 
purification   by  means  of  confession,  penances,  and 
fasting  ;  the  practice  of  such  confession  alone  proving 
that   feelings  of  remorse   are  not  foreign  to   savage 
races,  difficult  as  it  must  always  be  to  discriminate 


SAVAGE  MORAL  PHILOSOPHY.  129 

between  actual  remorse  for  wickedness  and  the  mere 
dread  of  contingent  punishment.  The  greater  social 
crimes,  murder,  theft,  and  adultery,  though  not  re- 
cognized as  morally  worse  than  many  acts  of  purely 
fanciful  badness,  are  sufficiently  prevented  by  the  fear 
of  revenge  or  of  tribal  punishment  ;  and  statements 
concerning  indifference  to  the  immorality  of  such 
actions  either  do  not  rest  on  good  evidence  or  apply 
to  extra-tribal,  that  is,  to  hostile  relations.  It  seems, 
therefore,  that  fundamentally  the  two  extremities  of 
civilisation  are  ethically  united  ;  each  having  for  its 
standard  of  morality  the  idea  of  its  own  welfare,  and 
deriving  a  sense  of  moral  obligation  from  a  more  or 
less  vague  dread  of  consequences.  The  fundamental 
identity  of  human  emotions,  of  the  operations  of  the 
feelings  of  love,  fear,  hope,  and  shame,  appear  to  have 
produced,  in  different  stages  of  culture,  very  similar 
moral  feelings  ;  nor  is  it  conceivable  that  such  feel- 
ings, howsoever  much  weaker,  were  ever  radically 
different  in  the  most  remote  antiquity. 


K 


130 


V. 
SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

FROM  the  accounts  of  travellers  respecting  the  nature 
of  government  among  uncivilised  tribes  it  would  not 
be  a  purely  baseless  theory  to  construct  a  scale  of 
successive  developments,  ranging  from  people  entirely 
destitute  of  political  cohesion  to  people  characterised 
by  a  quite  despotic  form  of  government,  and  agreeing 
in  the  main  with  the  fishing  or  hunting  and  the  agri- 
cultural stages  of  human  advancement  respectively. 
The  savage  idea  of  monarchy  is  represented  by  all 
the  possible  gradations  between  the  most  limited  and 
the  most  absolute  kind  of  government,  and  we  should 
naturally  look  for  the  best  types  of  the  latter  among 
tribes  where  geographical  limitations  or  other  causes 
have  necessitated  a  stationary  and  agricultural  life. 
We  should  expect  to  find  the  first  germs  of  recognised 
leadership  among  people  taught  by  war  and  the  chase 
to  appreciate  superior  strength  or  skill ;  and  to  see 
such  temporary  leaders  pass  into  definite  political 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE.  131 

chiefs,  when  a  more  settled  mode  of  life  has  given 
fixedness  to  ideas  of  property  and  made  its  defence 
more  desirable.  We  might  infer  a  priori  that  as  men 
lived  by  hunting  or  fishing  before  they  drove  flocks, 
and  drove  flocks  before  they  tilled  the  ground,  so  they 
lived  in  families  before  they  lived  in  hordes,  and  in 
hordes  before  they  lived  in  larger  social  aggregates. 
As  representatives  of  the  lowest  stage  of  society,  we 
might  instance  the  Esquimaux,  whom  Cranz  found 
'  destitute  of  the  very  shadow  of  a  civil  polity  ; '  and 
we  might  pass  from  the  hunting  populations  of 
America,  who  only  choose  rulers  for  the  temporary 
purposes  of  war  or  the  chase,  to  the  despotic  forms  of 
government  characteristic  of  the  agricultural  com- 
munities of  Africa  or  Polynesia. 

It  is  not,  however,  worth  insisting  on  an  induction 
which  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  negative  instances 
drawn  from  so  large  a  surface  as  the  whole  known 
globe.  To  supply  only  one  instance,  in  which  the 
hunting  state  coexists  with  a  somewhat  advanced 
political  system.  Most  South  American  tribes,  who 
practised  husbandry  in  addition  to  fishing  and  hunting 
to  a  far  greater  extent  than  North  American  tribes, 
were  found,  in  point  of  social  organisation,  at  a  much 
lower  level  than  the  Northern  tribes,  it  being  possible 
to  classify  the  latter  into  nations  by  words  supplied 
by  themselves,  whilst  in  the  South  there  were  merely 
bands,  and  it  was  necessary  to  invent  names  for  such 

K  2 


1 32  SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE. 

groups  of  bands  as  were  allied  together  by  language.1 
Facts  are  the  test  of  theories,  not  theories  of  facts ; 
and  to  insist  on  fitting  facts  to  a  theory  is  to  fall  into 
the  error  of  the  unskilful  shoemaker,  who  transposes 
the  task  of  fitting  shoes  to  feet  for  the  easier  one  of 
insisting  that  feet  shall  fit  his  shoes. 

Without,  therefore,  attempting  to  elaborate  theories 
about  the  development  of  political  ideas  from  their 
rudest  beginnings  to  their  expression  in  mature  and 
complex  state-systems,  it  may  not  be  labour  lost  to 
collect,  within  readable  compass,  some  estimate  of 
the  notions  of  sovereignty,  the  political  organisations, 
the  relations  of  classes,  and  the  peculiar  institutions 
found  among  those  communities  of  the  earth  who  seem 
the  best  representatives  of  primitive  manners  and 
the  least  advanced  from  a  state  of  primitive  barbarism. 

Statements  concerning  the  total  absence  of  civil 
government  among  savages,  like  statements  concerning 
their  total  ignorance  of  religion,  should  be  received 
with  the  reserve  due  to  all  propositions  containing 
terms  of  expansive  signification.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  it  is  generally  tribes  declared  to  be  destitute  of 
all  religious  feelings  who  in  the  same  sentence  or 
paragraph  are  described  as  also  destitute  of  political 
ties  ;  the  statement  that  a  tribe  is  entirely  destitute  of 
religion  or  of  any  civil  polity  being,  in  fact,  often  only 
an  hyperbolical  expression,  intended  to  convey  an 
1  Peschel,  428-31. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  133 

extreme  idea  of  their  barbarity.  Bushmen,.  Califor- 
nians,  and  Australians  have  severally  been  described 
as  not  only  not  recognizing  any  gods,  but  as  not  re- 
cognizing any  chiefs  ;  but  subsequent  research  having 
proved  that  Bushmen,  at  least,  possess  an  elaborate 
mythology,  worshipping  the  ethereal  bodies,  and 
having  their  own  distinctive  myths  concerning  the 
Creation,  suspicion  is  naturally  aroused  that  all 
broadly  negative  assertions  of  the  same  sort  may  be  but 
the  results  of  insufficient  observation.1  '  The  Caribs,' 
says  one  writer,  '  had  no  chiefs  ;  every  man  obeyed  the 
dictates  of  his  passions  unrestrained  by  government 
or  laws  ; '  but  according  to  another  they  lived  in  hordes 
of  from  forty  to  fifty  persons,  under  a  patriarchal 
form  of  government,  and  recognized  a  common  chief 
whenever  they  went  to  war  with  their  neighbours.2 

Undoubtedly,  however,  in  countries  where  excess 
of  numbers  has  not  driven  communities  to  improve 
their  condition  by  raids  against  their  neighbours,  and 
where,  consequently,  military  skill  has  attained  no 
importance  nor  authority,  much  looser  social  bonds 
may  be  found  than  in  places  where  a  sense  of  property 
and  of  its  value  has  arisen.  Among  people  like  the 

1  The    collection   of  native   Bushman   literature   is   said   to   have 
reached    eighty-four    volumes !      In    Dr.   Bleek's    Brief  Account   of 
Bushman  Folk  Lore,  and  in  the  Cape  Monthly  Magazine  for  July  1874, 
some  account  is  given  of  their  mythology. 

2  Comp.  Bancroft,   i.   771,  and  Humboldt,  Personal  Narrative,  v. 
269. 


134  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

Esquimaux,  the  Lapps,  or  the  Kamschadals,  who 
live  together  in  independent  families,  age  is  the  only 
title  to  authority  ;  and  if  skill  in  seal-catching  or  in 
weather-lore  procure  for  a  Greenlander  the  deference 
of  younger  members  of  his  race,  he  has  no  power  to 
compel  any  of  them  to  follow  his  counsels,  and  the 
only  moral  check  to  a  refractory  person  is  a  possible 
refusal  on  the  part  of  his  fellows  to  share  the  same  hut 
with  him.  If,  in  distant  voyages,  all  the  boatmen 
submit  their  kajaks  to  the  guidance  of  their  country- 
man who  is  best  acquainted  with  the  way,  they  are  at 
perfect  liberty  to  separate  from  him  at  pleasure. 
Beyond  this  slight  tie  they  have,  or  had  when  Cranz 
wrote,  no  political  union,  no  system  of  taxation  or 
legislation  of  any  kind,  albeit  they  were  not  wanting 
in  methods  for  the  enforcement  of  certain  moral  duties 
and  the  prevention  of  certain  moral  wrongs.  Of  the 
Kamschadals,  Steller  tells  us  that  they  had  no  chief, 
but  that  everyone  was  allowed  to  live  according  to  his 
pleasure ;  yet  that  they  chose  leaders  for  their  expedi- 
tions, who  were  without  even  power  to  decide  private 
disputes,  and  that  each  ostrog,  or  family  settlement,  had 
its  ruler  (generally  the  oldest  male),  whose  power  to 
punish  consisted  solely  in  the  right  of  verbal  correction.1 
From  the  condition  of  the  Kamschadals  or 
Esquimaux  to  the  condition  of  Eastern  Asia  or 
Polynesia,  where  a  king's  name  is  often  so  sacred  as 

1  Steller,  Kamschatka,  pp.  234,  355. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  135 

to  be  avoided  altogether,  as  many  gradations  of  civil 
authority  exist  as  otherwise  mark  the  difference  of 
their  respective  civilisations.  As  the  progress  of  an 
individual  from  infancy  to  old  age  is  marked  at  each 
stage  by  a  strict  equipoise  of  good  and  evil,  varying 
only  in  kind,  so  every  upward  step  in  the  social 
advancement  of  mankind  seems  attended  with  some 
equivalent  loss.  Individual  liberty  is  greatest  where 
the  social  bond  is  the  loosest ;  and  people  like  the 
rude  hunting  tribes  of  Brazil,  with  only  their  hunting- 
grounds  to  defend  and  only  temporary  leaders  to 
obey,  undoubtedly  enjoy  greater  freedom  than  is  com- 
patible with  an  agricultural  life.  As  soon  as  tribes 
become  settled  and  practise  husbandry  they  are 
naturally  impelled  to  seek  the  labour  of  slaves,  which 
is  a  thing  undesirable  when  a  scanty  subsistence  is 
gained  by  the  exertions  of  the  chase.  And  when 
once  the  existence  of  slavery  has  established  a  differ- 
ence between  bondsmen  and  free,  a  way  is  open  for 
all  those  artificial  divisions  of  society  into  ranks  and 
castes  which  seem  in  later  times  to  belong  to,  nay,  to 
constitute,  the  natural  order  of  things. 

It  is,  however,  even  at  lower  levels  of  general 
culture,  often  among  tribes  who  are  still  in  the  hunt- 
ing stage,  that  we  find  all  traces  disappear  of  that 
condition  of  freedom  and  equality  once  fondly 
imagined  to  belong  to  a  '  state  of  nature.'  Savages 
seldom  constitute  pure  democracies,  in  the  sense 


136  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

either  of  all  being  equal  or  of  all  being  free.  Even 
where  the  monarchical  power  is  quite  rudimentary, 
well-marked  distinctions  serve  to  sever  them  into  aris- 
tocracy and  commonalty  ;  for  the  natural  differences 
of  capacity  between  men  divide  them,  if  less  strongly, 
not  less  definitely  than  slavery.  Superiority  in 
courage,  strength,  sagacity,  or  experience,  entitles  a 
savage  to  much  the  same  privileges  that,  in  more 
civilised  countries,  are  allotted  to  superiority  in 
wealth  or  lineage.  The  conditions,  however,  of  savage 
life  cause  merit,  and  not  birth,  to  be  the  primary 
qualification  both  for  chieftainship  and  nobility. 
Where  military  capacity  is  the  sole  basis  of  authority 
it  follows  that  such  authority  only  descends  to  sons, 
if  they  are  as  gifted  as  their  parents  with  military 
prowess  ;  also,  that  any  commoner  may  at  any  time 
become  a  noble  if  duly  qualified  for  a  leader,  and  that 
for  the  same  reason  even  the  female  sex  is  not 
excluded  from  a  career  of  political  ambition.  Among 
the  Abipones  women  were  often  raised  to  the  dignity 
of  cacique  or  captainship  of  a  horde  ;  nor  is  it  rare  to 
find  them  capable  of  occupying  positions  of  similar 
dignity  among  tribes  who,  in  other  respects,  treat 
their  women  as  little  better  than  beasts  of  burthen. 
The  Iroquois  women,  for  instance,  on  whom  devolved 
all  daily  labour,  such  as  planting  the  corn,  cutting 
and  carrying  firewood,  bearing  all  burdens  when 
marching,  had  their  representatives  in  the  public 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  137 

councils,  enjoyed  a  veto  upon  declarations  of  war, 
and  the  right  of  interposing  to  bring  about  a  peace.1 
Khond  wives  filled  the  same  important  post  of 
mediators  and  peace-makers  in  the  wars  between 
the  tribes  of  their  husbands  and  their  parents  ;  and 
in  Africa,  where  the  position  of  women  is  almost 
uniformly  one  of  slavery,  they  are  ambassadors, 
traders,  warriors,  sometimes  queens,  besides  tilling 
the  ground,  tending  the  herds,  or  working  in  mines.2 

As  many  savages  surround  the  entrance  to  their 
paradise  with  imaginary  physical  difficulties  which 
only  the  bravest  can  overcome,  so  they  frequently 
make  admission  to  the  rank  of  their  nobility  depen- 
dent on  the  performance  of  certain  rites  and  cere- 
monies which  sufficiently  attest  the  endurance  of 
the  aspirant  to  social  elevation.  An  Indian  tribe  on 
the  Orinoco  used  to  lay  such  a  candidate  on  a  hurdle, 
place  burning  coals  beneath,  and  then  cover  him  with 
palm-leaves  all  over,  in  order  to  make  the  heat  more 
suffocating.  Or,  they  would  perhaps  anoint  him 
with  honey,  and  leave  him  for  hours  tied  to  a  tree  at 
the  mercy  of  the  insects  of  those  latitudes.  The 
Abiponian  plan  was,  to  place  a  black  bead  on  a 
tribeman's  tongue  and  insist  on  his  staying  at  home 
for  three  days,  abstaining  all  the  while  from  the 

1  Schoolcraft,  I.  T.,  in.  191. 

2  Reade,  Savage  Africa,  p.   51;  Burton,   Da/iome,  ii.  76  j    Pin- 
kerton,  xvi.  492. 


138  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

ordinary  pleasures  of  food,  drink,  and  speech.  Then 
on  the  eve  of  the  day  of  his  inauguration  all  the  women 
of  the  horde  would  come  to  his  tent,  in  uncouth  attire, 
and  lament  loudly  for  the  ancestors  of  the  man  who 
would  fain  be  a  noble.  The  next  day,  after  gallop- 
ing spear  in  hand  on  horses  decorated  with  bells  and 
feathers  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  wind,  he  had  to 
surfer  the  priestess  of  the  ceremonies  to  shave  a  band 
on  his  head,  three  inches  wide  from  the  forehead 
backwards.  A  eulogy  by  the  old  woman,  recording 
his  warlike  character  and  noble  actions,  concluding 
with  a  change  of  name  befitting  his  change  of  rank, 
completed  the  ceremony  of  his  installation.  In 
ancient  Mexico  a  candidate  for  the  noble  order  of  the 
Tecuhtli  had  to  remain  impassive  whilst  the  high 
priest  insulted  him,  whilst  the  assistant  priests  mocked 
him  as  a  coward  and  tore  his  clothes  from  his  body, 
and  all  this  previous  to  a  noviciate  which  lasted  two 
years,  and  ended  with  four  days  of  severe  penance, 
fastings,  and  prayers.1 

The  prevalence,  indeed,  of  equality  among  savages 
is  one  of  those  fictions  which  date  from  the  time  when 
writers  drew  on  their  own  minds  for  a  knowledge  of 
anthropology  :  a  fiction  due  to  the  same  tendency 
which  created  for  the  Greeks  their  Elysian  Fields,  or 
for  the  Tongan  islanders  their  Bolotu,  leading  them 

1  Bancroft,  ii.  194,  and  i.  414,  280.     Compare  Catlin,  i.  170 ;  and 
Crete's  Greece,  for  an  ordeal  at  Snarta. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE.  139 

to  refer  to  the  distant  or  the  unknown  the  actualisa- 
tion  of  those  longings  and  ideals  which  the  immediate 
surroundings  of  the  world  could  not  gratify.  But  the 
truth  is,  that  so  firmly  among  most  savages  has  the 
idea  become  fixed  of  an  essential  difference  in  the 
nature  of  nobles  and  commons,  of  governors  and 
governed,  that  the  demarcations  of  their  mundane 
economy  are  transferred  into  their  speculations  about 
the  unseen  world,  and  the  inequalities  of  this  life  are 
often  perpetuated  in  the  next.  New  Zealanders  be- 
lieved that,  whilst  all  spirits  at  death  went  as  falling 
stars  to  Reinga,  or  the  lower  world,  those  of  chiefs 
went  first  of  all  to  heaven,  where  their  left  eye  re- 
mained as  a  star.1  Among  the  Zulus  the  snakes  into 
which  departed  chiefs  turn  are  easily  distinguishable 
from  those  which  embody  commoner  people.2  As 
paupers  and  bondsmen  were  not  admitted  to  Valhalla, 
so  the  '  masses '  of  the  Tongan  islanders  have  neither 
souls  nor  futurity.  The  Dahomans  who  call  this 
world  their  plantation  and  the  next  their  home,  believe 
that  in  the  latter  '  the  king  is  a  king  and  the  slave  a 
slave  for  ever  and  ever.' 3  In  Samoa  not  only  had  chiefs 
a  larger  hole  than  plebeians  by  which  to  descend  to 
the  under  world,  but  also  a  separate  habitation,  serving 
as  columns  to  support  the  temple  of  the  underground 
god,  and  enjoying  the  best  of  food  and  all  other 

1  Dieffenbach,  p.  667.  2  Callaway,  ii.  196. 

8  Burton,  Mission,  ii    157. 


I4o  SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE. 

pleasures.1  Whilst  the  Thlinkeets  burnt  most  bodies, 
that  they  might  be  warm  in  their  new  home,  slaves 
were  buried,  as  only  deserving  to  freeze  there  ;  and  the 
Ahts,  allotting  a  plenteous  and  sunny  land  in  the  sky 
to  dead  chiefs,  relegate  persons  of  low  degree  to  a  sub- 
terranean abode,  where  the  houses  are  poor,  the  deer 
small,  and  the  blankets  thin.2 

Devices  have  varied  all  over  the  world  for  marking 
the  innate  or  acquired  differences  between  men.  The 
Tibboos  of  Africa  denote  difference  of  rank  by  different 
scars  on  the  face  ;  but  distinctions  in  dress  or  in  titles 
have  been  the  usual  resort  of  the  civilised  and  semi- 
civilised  world  alike  ;  and  the  highest  Fijian  chiefs, 
who  would  style  themselves  the  '  subjects  of  Heaven 
only,'  were  prompted  by  the  same  natural  vanity  that 
gave  birth  among  ourselves  to  the  '  Knights  of  the 
Lion  and  Sun '  or  to  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings.  But  the  most  striking  device  in  the  lower 
grades  of  civilisation  is  the  conscious  invention  and 
use  of  a  different  form  of  speech,  amounting  almost  to 
the  use  of  a  different  language,  such  as  was  the  plan 
adopted  by  the  Abipones  to  mark  the  difference  be- 
tween noble  and  plebeian.  Persons  advanced  to  the 
rank  of  nobles,  or  the  Hocheri,  were  not  only  dis- 
tinguished from  their  fellows  by  a  change  of  name 
(men  adding  the  suffix  m,  women  en,  to  their  former 

1  Turner,  p.  236.  2  Sproat,  p.  213. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  141 

appellation),  but  the  whole  language  spoken  by  the 
Hocheri  was,  by  the  insertion  or  addition  of  syllables, 
so  altered  from  the  vulgar  tongue  as  to  amount  to  a 
distinct  aristocratic  dialect.1  It  is  remarkable  how  a 
similar  practice  prevails  in  widely  remote  parts  of  the 
globe.  Among  Circassians  the  language  for  the  com- 
mon people  is  one,  that  for  the  princes  and  nobility 
another ;  nor  may  the  commonalty,  though  they 
understand  it,  venture  to  speak  in  the  secret  or  court 
language.2  'As  in  the  Malayan  so  in  the  Fijian  lan- 
guage, there  exists  an  aristocratical  dialect,'  and  in 
some  places  '  not  a  member  of  a  chiefs  body  or  the 
commonest  acts  of  his  life  are  mentioned  in  ordinary 
phraseology,  but  are  all  hyperbolised.' 3  In  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  '  the  chiefs  formed  a  conventional  dialect, 
or  court  language,  understood  only  among  themselves. 
If  any  of  its  terms  became  known  by  the  lower  orders 
they  were  immediately  discarded  and  others  substi- 
tuted.' 4  So,  too,  it  is  said  that  the  island  Caribs  held 
their  war  councils  in  a  secret  dialect,  known  only  to 
the  chiefs  and  elders,  into  which  they  were  initiated 
after  attaining  distinction  in  war.5  Of  the  Society 
Islanders,  Ellis  tells  us  that  '  sounds  in  the  language 
composing  the  names  of  the  king  and  queen  could  no 


1  Dobritzhoflfer,  Abipones,  ii.  204,  441. 

2  Klemm,  Culturgeschichte,  iv.  101. 

3  Williams,  Fiji,  p.  29.  4  Jarves,  History  of  Hawaii,  p.  23. 
5  Brett,  Wild  Tribes  of  Guiana,  p.  131. 


142  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

longer  be  applied  to  ordinary  significations  ' — a  rule, 
he  adds,  which  brought  about  many  changes  in  the 
words  used  for  things.1  Lastly,  in  the  Tongan  islands 
something  of  the  same  kind  also  prevailed,  for  there 
we  find  that  among  the  ways  of  paying  special  honour 
to  the  Tooitonga,  or  divine  chief,  was  the  employment, 
in  speaking  with  him,  of  words  devoted  exclusively 
to  his  use,  as  substitutes  for  words  of  ordinary 
parlance. 

Another  method  by  which  savages  seek  to  mark 
the  different  grades  of  society  is  to  signalise  by  an 
excess  of  demonstration  their  sorrow  for  the  departure 
of  persons  of  rank  from  among  them.  The  custom  of 
cutting  off  finger-joints  in  token  of  grief,  from  its 
prevalence  among  the  Blackfeet  Indians  of  North 
America,  the  Hottentots  of  South  Africa,  some  tribes 
of  Australia,  and  among  the  female  portion  of  the 
Charruas  of  South  America,  may  be  considered  to 
rank  among  the  remarkable  analogies  of  world-culture, 
when  we  find  that  a  similar  custom  prevailed  also 
among  the  Tongan  Islanders  whenever  the  death  of  a 
chief  or  a  superior  relation  left  his  survivors  comfort- 
less. It  is  possible  that  the  idea  of  propitiating  angry 
gods  by  self-inflicted  pains  may  have  originally  un- 
derlain many  of  the  practices  in  after  times  regarded 
as  mere  manifestations  of  grief;  for  Captain  Cook, 
speaking  of  the  knocking  out  of  front  teeth  at  fune- 

1  Ellis,  Polynesian  Researches,  iii.  104. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE.  143 

rals,  says  that  he  always  understood  that  this  custom, 
like  that  of  cutting  off  finger-joints,  was  not  inflicted 
from  any  violence  of  grief  so  much  as  intended 
for  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  to  the  Atoa,  to  avert 
any  possible  danger  or  mischief  from  the  survivors.1 
Thus  Bushmen  sacrifice  the  end  joints  of  their  fingers 
in  sickness  ;  and  during  the  illness  of  a  Tooitonga  his 
countrymen  would  seek  to  appease  the  god  whose 
anger  had  caused  the  disease  by  the  sacrifice  daily  of 
the  little  finger  of  a  young  relation.  Mariner  mentions 
two  patriotic  young  Tonganers  contesting  with  fist 
and  foot  the  right  thus  to  testify  their  regard  for  the 
lord  of  their  country.  It  is  easily  conceivable  how  a 
practice,  begun  with  the  idea  of  conciliating  the 
cause  of  a  disease,  might  be  continued  for  the  pur- 
pose of  conciliating  the  cause  of  death,  and  thus  how 
(as  in  Fiji,  where  on  the  death  of  a  king  orders  were 
issued  that  one  hundred  fingers  should  be  cut  off)  an 
archaic  superstition  might  pass  into  a  meaningless 
formality. 

There  are,  however,  various  other  ways  of  exhibit- 
ing regret  for  departed  nobility.  In  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  if  a  chief  dies,  the  highest  mark  of  respect 
his  survivors  can  show  is  to  strike  out  one  of  their 
front  teeth  with  a  stone.  They  also  tattoo  their 
tongues,  deprive  themselves  of  an  ear,  or  shave  their 
heads  in  fantastic  designs.  The  latter  is  a  world-wide 

1  Cook,  Voyages,  vii.  149. 


144  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

symbol  of  sorrow  ;  more  peculiar  is  the  license  to  rob 
and  burn  houses  and  commit  other  enormities,  which 
is,  or  was  once,  customary  in  Hawaii  on  the  death  of 
a  chief.  In  Tonga  and  Tahiti  it  was  customary  on 
such  occasions  to  cut  the  forehead  and  breast  with 
sharks'  teeth.  Axes,  clubs,  knives,  stones,  or  shells 
were  employed  freely  for  self-mutilation,  when  Finow, 
the  King  of  Tonga,  died  ;  his  disconsolate  subjects 
seeking  to  induce  him,  by  the  energy  of  their  blows 
and  the  loudness  of  their  prayers,  to  lay  aside  those 
suspicions  of  their  loyalty  which  had  prompted  him 
to  depart  from  Tonga  to  Bolotu.1 

In  modern  civilised  life  such  clear  distinctions 
exist  no  longer,  but  there  is  at  least  one  symbol 
of  nobility  which  bears  distinct  traces  of  descent 
from  uncivilised  conceptions  and  usages.  From  the 
common  practice  of  making  a  particular  species  of 
animal  the  totem,  or  representative,  of  a  particular 
person,  family,  or  tribe,  arose  probably  the  custom  of 
distinguishing  persons  or  families  by  crests,  figurative 
of  their  patron  animals.  Both  among  the  Kolushs,  a 
fishing  North  American  tribe,  and  their  neighbours, 
the  Haidahs,  of  Queen  Charlotte's  Island,  the  exist- 
ence of  an  aristocracy  of  birth  is  proved  from  the 
presence  of  family  crests  among  them,  derived  from 
figures  of  certain  animals.  Sir  G.  Grey  noticed  in 

1  Mariner,  Tongan  Islands,  i.  380,  403. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  145 

Australia  that  each  family  adopted  some  animal  or 
vegetable  for  its  crest  or  Kobong,1  and  the  hereditary 
nobility  of  the  rude  Thlinkeet  Indians  paint  or 
carve  the  heraldic  emblem  of  their  clan  on  their 
houses,  boats,  robes,  shields,  or  wherever  else  they 
can  find  room  for  it.2  These  few  instances  from 
the  lower  culture  suffice  to  explain  how  animal 
figures,  supposed  to  be  expressive  of  the  character 
of  gods  or  warriors,  came  to  be  worn  above  their 
helmets  ;  and  how  in  the  case  of  warriors  at  least, 
they  gradually  passed  from  their  helmets  to  their 
shields,  till  they  became  part  of  armorial  bearings,  so 
highly  prized  and  zealously  transmitted  from  gene- 
ration to  generation.  Newton,  the  author  of  the 
'  Display  of  Heraldry,'  expresses  his  belief  that  the 
most  ancient  class  of  crests  were  taken  from  ferocious 
animals,  which  were  regarded  as  figuratively  repre- 
senting the  bearer  and  his  pursuits.  Certain  it  is  that 
a  far  larger  proportion  of  crests  are  derived  from  the 
animal  world,  from  beasts,  birds,  fishes,  reptiles,  and 
even  insects,  than  from  any  other  sublunary  class  of 
things.3 

If    now  we   turn   to   the   savage    conception   of 

1  J^ravels  in  Australia,  ii.  228.  2  Bancroft,  i.  109 

3  In  Papworth's  Ordinary  of  British  Armorials,  no  less  than  124 
pages  are  filled  with  the  names  of  families  who  take  their  crest  from 
some  animal ;  34  pages  of  families  take  their  crests  from  the  lion 
alone. 


146  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

monarchy,  we  shall  find  that,  wherever  regal  authority 
exists,  it  is  sustained  by  a  more  or  less  strong  belief 
in  the  divine  origin  of  kings.  The  constitutional 
power  of  a  king  varies  with  the  amount  of  divinity 
ascribed  to  him.  As  Russians  of  the  sixteenth 
century  held  the  will  of  their  Grand  Duke  to  be  the 
will  of  God,  and  whatever  he  did  to  be  done  by  the 
will  of  God,1  so  now  in  Africa  the  king  of  Loango  is 
not  only  honoured  as  a  god,  but  known  by  the  same 
name  as  the  Deity  ;  namely,  Samba.  His  subjects, 
accrediting  him  with  power  over  the  elements,  pray 
to  him  for  rain  in  times  of  drought.  But  as  a  king's 
divine  origin  means  his  divine  right,  or  in  other  words 
his  despotic  power,  his  subjects  only  enjoy  their  lives 
and  property  on  the  tenure  of  his  will,  nor  does  there 
seem  any  moral  limitation  to  his  regal  rights,  save  an 
obligation  to  make  use  of  native  products  and  dresses. 
The  king  of  Dahomey,  also  revered  as  a  god,  appears 
to  possess  power  over  his  countrymen  which  is  only 
so  far  limited,  that  he  cannot  behead  princes  of  the 
blood  royal  but  must  confine  his  vengeance  against 
them  to  strangulation  or  slavery.  Without  his  leave 
no  caboceer  may  alter  his  house,  wear  European 
shoes,  or  carry  an  umbrella.  Many  kings  of  the  Fiji 
Islands  claimed  a  divine  origin  and  asserted  the  rights 
of  deities,  their  persons  indeed  being  so  religiously 

1  Herberstein,  i.  32. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE.  147 

revered  that  even  in  battle  their  inferiors  would  fear 
to  strike  them.  In  Tahiti,  Oro,  the  chief  god,  was 
called  the  king's  father,  and  the  same  homage  that 
was  paid  to  the  gods  and  their  temples  was  paid  also 
to  the  king  and  his  dwellings,  the  homage,  namely,  of 
stripping  to  the  waist.  At  his  coronation  the  king 
asserted  his  dominion  over  the  sea,  by  being  rowed  in 
Oro's  sacred  canoe  and  receiving  congratulation  from 
two  divine  sharks.  So  that  it  was  no  mere  spirit  of 
bombastic  adulation  that  caused  the  king's  houses  to 
be  identified,  in  popular  parlance,  with  the  Clouds  of 
Heaven,  the  lights  in  them  with  the  Lightning,  or  his 
canoe  with  the  Rainbow  ;  and  if  his  voice  was  de- 
scribed as  the  Thunder,  it  doubtless  was  due  to  that 
common  association  of  electricity  with  divinity,  such 
as,  for  instance,  prompted  the  savages  of  Chili  to 
employ  the  same  name  for  Thunder  and  for  God. 
The  ceremony  of  creating  a  Tahitian  king  consisted 
in  girding  him  with  a  girdle  of  red  feathers,  which,  as 
they  were  taken  from  the  chief  idols,  were  thought 
to  be  capable  of  conferring  on  the  monarch  the  divine 
attributes  of  power  and  vengeance.  That  a  human 
sacrifice  was  essential,  not  only  at  the  commencement 
and  completion  of  the  girdle,  but  often  for  every 
piece  successively  added  to  it,  confirms  the  experi- 
ence of  all  ages  and  countries  respecting  the  tendency 
of  monarchical  governments  in  barbarous  times,  a 
tendency  which  was  never  better  appreciated  than  by 

L  2 


148  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

the  ancient  Japanese.  For  they  used  to  make  their 
prince  sit  crowned  on  his  throne  for  some  hours 
every  morning,  without  suffering  him  to  move  his 
hands  or  feet,  his  head  or  eyes,  or  indeed  any  part 
of  his  body,  believing  that  by  this  means  alone  could 
peace  and  tranquillity  be  preserved  ;  and  '  if  unfor- 
tunately he  turned  himself  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
or  if  he  looked  a  good  while  towards  any  part  of  his 
dominions,  it  was  apprehended  that  war,  famine,  fire, 
or  some  other  great  misfortune  was  near  at  hand  to 
desolate  the  country.' l  The  Samoans  thought  also 
that  some  deadly  influence  radiated  from  the  person 
of  a  king  which  could  only  be  broken  by  aspersion 
with  water.2 

Inasmuch,  however,  as  government  of  any  kind  is 
impossible  without  a  subdivision  of  functions,  and  a 
king  needs  ministers  to  execute  his  will,  the  limitation 
of  a  council  is  almost  inseparable  from  even  the  most 
absolute  monarchy.  A  perfectly  pure  despotism  exists, 
therefore,  nowhere  save  in  the  definitions  of  the 
science  of  politics.  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  conceive 
an  arbitrary  government  except  as  a  synonym  for 
total  anarchy.  In  Loango,  where  the  king  nominates 
and  displaces  his  officers  at  pleasure,  and  is  absolute 
disposer  of  his  subjects'  lives  and  liberties,  armed 
resistance  is  said  to  be  often  made  against  him,  and 
his  power  to  depend  on  his  wealth  and  connections. 

1  Kempper,  Japan;  Pinkerton,  vii.  718.          *  Turner,  p.  343. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  149 

Even  a  king  of  Dahomey  said  that  he  would  imperil 
his  life  if  he  attempted  to  put  down  slavery  and 
human  sacrifices  all  at  once,  and  it  is  said  that  what- 
ever despotic  acts  may  be  witnessed  in  Africa  they 
are  all  performed  according  to  the  common  law  of 
the  land.1  Among  the  Ashantees  there  are  four  men 
at  the  head  of  the  nobility  who  exert  great  influence 
and  serve  to  balance  the  monarchical  power.2  Among 
the  Kaffirs,  the  chiefs  of  hordes,  though  with  power 
of  life  and  death,  are  restrained  by  the  councillors 
they  themselves  nominate  from  attacking  ancient 
usages  ;  and  though  the  king  is  despotic,  his  despot- 
ism must  not  transgress  known  laws.  The  right  of 
desertion  also  which  practically  belongs  to  every 
member  of  a  horde,  acts  as  a  most  effectual  moral 
check  upon  tyrannical  tendencies.  Indeed,  through- 
out Africa,  the  differentiation  of  functions  of  govern- 
ment, or  the  division  of  political  labour,  is  carried  to 
an  extent  which  proves  how  little  necessary  connec- 
tion there  is  between  high  political  capacity  and  high 
culture  in  other  respects.  In  Dahomey,  where  a 
man's  life  is  less  sacred  than  that  of  a  fox  in  England, 
there  are  two  chief  ministers  in  constant  attendance 
on  the  king,  a  third  who  is  commander-in-chief  of 
the  army,  and  a  fourth  who  superintends  the  due 
punishment  of  crimes. 

1  Reade,  Savage  Africa,  p.  43. 

2  Burton,  Mission,  ii.  367  ;  and  Bowen,  Central  Africa,  p.  318. 


i$o  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

The  existence,  again,  of  grades  of  society,  clearly 
marked  by  differences  of  functions  and  privileges,  is 
itself  a  proof  of  a  political  organisation  which 
implies  limitations  to  the  exercise  of  sovereignty. 
Classes  with  distinct  rights  and  relations  prove  the 
constraint  of  a  public  law  which  even  monarchs  must 
recognise  and  respect  In  Fetu  in  Africa,  where 
frequently  from  four  to  five  hundred  slaves  are  killed 
at  a  king's  funeral  to  serve  him  beyond  the  grave, 
there  is  a  distinct  class  of  freemen,  with  specific  rights, 
sprung  from  the  noble  and  slave  classes.  So,  also, 
wherever  the  Malay  race  has  settled  in  the  Pacific, 
their  feudal  institutions  and  classes  bear  a  striking 
resemblance  to  those  of  mediaeval  Europe.  In  the 
Fiji  Islands,  such  classes  are  said  to  be  so  clearly 
defined  as  to  amount  almost  to  a  system  of  caste. 
They  are: — 

1.  The  kings  and  queens. 

2.  Chiefs  of  large  dependent  islands  or  districts. 

3.  Chiefs  of  towns,  and  priests. 

4.  Warriors  of  low  birth  ;  chiefs  of  carpenters  and 

of  turtle-fishers. 

5.  The  people. 

6.  The  slaves  taken  in  war. 

With   which  may  be   compared   the   Tongan   social 
scale : — 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  151 

1.  The   Tooitonga   and  Veachi,  chiefs  of  divine 

descent. 

2.  The  king,  or  How. 

3.  The  Egi,  or  nobles  ;  all  persons  in   any  way 

related  to  the  two  former  classes. 

4.  The  priests. 

5.  The  Matabooles,  attendants  on  chiefs,  managers 

of  ceremonies,  preservers  of  records,  &c. 

6.  The  Mooas,  or  younger  sons  or  brothers  of  the 

Matabooles. 

7.  The  Tooas,  or  common  people,  who  practise 

such  arts  as  are  not  dignified  enough  to  pass 
from  father  to  son,  as  cookery,  club  carving, 
shaving,  or  tattooing. 

These  ranks  are  so  fixed  and  unalterable  that  they 
form  a  prominent  feature  in  the  Tongan  conception 
of  a  future  world.  Rank,  not  merit,  constitutes  the 
title  of  admission  to  Bolotu.  All  noble  souls  arrive 
there  and  enjoy  a  power  similar  but  inferior  to  that 
of  the  original  deities,  being  capable,  like  the  latter, 
of  inspiring  priests  living  on  earth.  The  Matabooles 
also  gain  admittance  to  Bolotu,  but  are  unable  to 
cause  priestly  inspirations.  The  souls  of  the  Tooas 
dissolve  with  the  body,  as  too  plebeian  to  find  a  place 
in  Paradise. 

In   the   Sandwich  Islands,   there   were   formerly 
three  aristocratic  orders— the  first  consisting  of  the 


1 52  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

king  and  queen,  their  relations,  and  the  chief 
councillors  ;  the  second  of  the  chiefs  of  dependent 
districts  ;  the  third  of  the  chiefs  of  villages  and  of 
priests.  Servile  homage  from  all  the  inferior  classes 
was  paid  to  these  three  orders,  but  particularly  to 
the  priests  and  higher  chiefs,  their  very  persons  and 
houses  being  accounted  sacred,  and  the  sight  of  them 
a  peremptory  signal  for  prostration.  The  people,  as 
in  mediaeval  Europe,  were  attached  to  the  soil  and 
transferred  with  it :  but  a  strong  customary  law  is 
said  nevertheless  to  have  regulated  both  the  tenure  of 
land  and  personal  security.1  If  they  had  no  voice  in 
the  government,  they  sometimes  took  part  in  public 
meetings,  nor  did  the  king  ever  resolve  on  matters  of 
weight  without  the  counsel  of  his  principal  chiefs. 
Yet  government  was  more  despotic  in  the  Sandwich 
than  in  either  the  Society  or  the  Fiji  Islands.  In 
Tahiti,  public  assemblies  were  held,  in  which  the 
speakers  did  not  hesitate  to  compare  the  state  to  a 
ship,  of  which  the  king  was  only  the  mast,  but  the 
landed  nobility  the  ropes  that  kept  it  upright.2 

Many  savage  tribes  have  succeeded,  by  speciously 
devised  forms  and  ceremonies,  in  clothing  arbitrary 
power  with  a  cloak  of  legality,  inviolably  divine.  The 
most  remarkable  of  these  devices  is  the  famous  in- 
stitution of  tabu,  which,  by  transferring  the  divinity 

1  Jarves,  History  of  Hawaii,  pp.  21,  23. 
*  Ellis,  Polynesian  Researches,  iii.  97. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE.  153 

inherent  in  a  king  or  chief  to  everything  that  comes 
in  contact  with  him,  early  invested  sovereign  power 
with  a  most  facile  and  elastic  weapon  of  government. 
For  the  principle,  that  whatever  a  king  touched 
became  sacred  to  his  use,  supplied  regal  power  with 
a  most  convenient  immunity  from  the  shackles  of 
ordinary  morality.  A  Fijian  king,  by  giving  his 
dress  to  an  English  sailor,  enabled  the  latter  to 
appropriate  whatever  food  he  chose  to  envelope  with 
the  train  of  his  dress.  Whatever  house  a  Tahitian 
king  or  queen  enters  is  vacated  by  its  owners  ;  the 
field  they  tread  on  becomes  theirs ;  their  clothes, 
their  canoes,  the  very  men  who  carry  them,  are  in- 
vested with  a  sanctity  the  violation  of  which  is  death, 
and  are  regarded  as.  precisely  as  holy  as  objects 
less  ostensibly  associated  with  earthly  necessities. 

But  whether  or  not  the  institution  of  tabu  was  a 
clever  invention  of  kings>  for  increasing  their  power, 
its  inevitable  extension  reacted  in  time  as  a  limita- 
tion to  it.  This  may  be  illustrated  from  the  Tongan 
Islands,  where  the  regal  power,  owing  probably  to  a 
long  constitutional  struggle  between  the  rival  claims 
to  sovereignty  of  birth  and  merit,  stood  in  a  most 
anomalous  position.  For  the  king  did  not  belong  to 
the  highest  rank  of  the  people,  his  title  depending  in 
part  on  birth,  but  principally  on  his  reputation  for  per- 
sonal strength  and  military  capacity.  Tooitonga  and 
Veachi,  the  direct  descendants  of  the  gods  who  first 


154  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

visited  the  island,  or  (as  we  may  perhaps  rationalistic- 
ally  translate  it)  the  direct  descendants  of  the  earliest 
kings,  occupied  a  higher  status  than  the  actual  king, 
and  were  honoured  with  acknowledgments  of  their 
divinity  which  even  the  king  himself  had  to  pay.  To 
the  posterity  of  bygone  monarchs  the  actual  king  stood 
in  the  relation  of  a  peasant  to  a  prince,  being  expected, 
like  anyone  else,  to  sit  down  on  the  ground  when  they 
passed,  though  they  might  be  his  inferiors  in  wealth 
nor  possessed  of  any  direct  power  save  over  their 
own  families  and  attendants.  The  dignity  of  the 
Tooitonga  survived  not  only  in  his  not  being  circum- 
cised nor  tattooed  as  other  men,  and  in  peculiar 
ceremonies  attending  his  marriage  or  his  burial,  but 
in  the  more  substantial  offerings  of  the  firstfruits  of 
the  year  at  stated  periodical  festivals.  The  king  used 
to  consult  him  before  undertaking  a  war  or  expedition, 
though  often  regardless  of  the  counsel  offered  ;  and 
in  reference  to  the  person  of  either  descendant  of  the 
gods  the  king  was  subject  to  tabu,  or  even  in  refer- 
ence to  ordinary  chiefs  in  any  way  related  to  them. 
If  he  but  touched  the  body,  the  dress,  or  the  sleeping 
mat  of  a  chief  nearer  related  to  Tooitonga  and  Veachi 
than  himself,  he  could  only  exempt  himself  from  the 
inconveniences  incurred  by  the  violation  of  tabu  by 
the  dispensation  attached  to  the  ceremony  of  touch- 
ing, with  both  his  hands,  the  feet  of  such  supernatural 
chief,  or  of  some  one  his  equal  in  rank. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE,  155 

In  the  Society  Islands,  in  consequence  of  the 
regal  attribute  inseparable  from  royalty  of  tabooing 
whatever  ground  it  traversed,  Tahitian  kings  became 
in  course  of  time  either  entirely  restricted  to  walking 
in  their  own  domains,  or  subjected  to  the  discomfort 
of  a  progress  on  servile  shoulders  over  whatever 
district  they  wished  to  visit.  So  that  tabu  in  both 
these  instances  acted  as  a  limitation  to  the  despotism 
of  the  king. 

In  Tahiti,  however,  the  king's  power  was  further 
limited  by  a  custom  which,  extending  as  it  did  to 
all  the  noble  classes,  was  perhaps  the  most  anomalous 
institution  in  the  world,  whether  as  regards  the  theory 
or  the  practice  of  inherited  rank.  For  the  custom 
compelling  a  king  or  a  noble  to  transfer  all  his  titles 
and  dignity  to  his  firstborn  son  at  the  moment  of  his 
birth,  whether  instituted  originally  for  securing  an 
undisputed  succession  to  the  regency  or  due  to  a 
similar  rude  confusion  of  ideas,  such  as  associates  the 
sanctity  of  a  man's  origin  with  the  sanctity  of  all 
he  touches,  carried  the  claims  of  primogeniture  to  a 
degree  unknown  either  by  the  Jewish  or  the  English 
law.  'Whatever  might  be  the  age  of  the  king,  his 
influence  in  the  state,  or  the  political  aspect  of  affairs 
in  respect  to  other  tribes,  as  soon  as  a  son  (of  noble 
birth)  was  born,  the  monarch  became  a  subject ;  the 
infant  son  was  at  once  proclaimed  sovereign  of  the 
people  ;  the  royal  name  was  conferred  upon  him,  and 


156  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

his  father  was  the  first  to  do  him  homage  by  saluting 
his  feet  and  declaring  him  king.'  The  national  herald, 
sent  round  the  island  with  the  infant  ruler's  flag,  pro- 
claimed his  name  in  every  district,  and,  if  it  were 
acknowledged  by  the  aristocracy,  edicts  were  thence- 
forth issued  in  his  name.  Not  only  the  homage  of 
his  people,  but  the  lands  and  other  sources  of  his 
father's  power,  were  transferred  to  the  minor  child, 
the  father  only  continuing  to  act  as  regent  till  his 
child's  capacity  for  government  was  matured. 

The  Fijians  also  have  a  peculiar  custom,  the  in- 
stitution of  Vasu,  which  serves  as  a  barrier  both  to 
regal  and  aristocratic  oppression,  and  shows  how, 
even  among  savages,  the  caprice  of  individuals  is  held 
in  bondage  by  the  traditions  of  the  elders.  Vasu 
signifies  the  common-law  right  of  a  nephew  to  ap- 
propriate to  his  own  use  anything  he  chooses  belong- 
ing to  an  uncle  or  to  anyone  under  his  uncle's  power. 
The  king  often  availed  himself  of  Vasu  for  his  own 
benefit,  it  being  customary  for  a  nephew  to  surrender 
as  tribute  most  of  the  legal  extortions  which  his  title  of 
Vasu  might  enable  him  to  levy.  But  the  king  himself 
was  liable  to  Vasu  ;  for  we  are  told  that,  '  however  high 
a  chief  may  rank,,  however  powerful  a  king  may  be,  if  he 
has  a  nephew  he  has  a  master ; '  for,  except  his  lands  and 
his  wives,  neither  chief  nor  king  possessed  anything 
which  his  nephew  might  not  appropriate  at  any 
moment.  If,  for  instance,  the  uncle  built  a  canoe  for 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE.  157 

himself,  his  nephew  had  only  to  come,  mount  the  deck, 
and  sound  his  trumpet  shell,  to  announce  to  all  the  world 
a  legitimate  and  indefeasible  transfer  of  ownership.  It 
is  even  said  that  on  one  occasion  a  nephew  at  war  with 
his  uncle  actually  supplied  himself,  unresisted,  with 
ammunition  from  his  enemy's  stores.  It  is  difficult 
indeed  to  divine  the  origin  of  so  singular  an  institution, 
unless  perhaps  we  regard  it  as  surviving  from  a  time 
when  as  in  so  many  parts  of  the  world  nephews  and 
not  sons  ranked  as  first  in  inheritance.  In  Loango  the 
nephews  of  a  deceased  king  become  princes,  whilst 
his  sons  descend  to  the  commonalty ;  the  throne  of 
Ashantee  passes  not  to  a  man's  natural  heir,  but  to 
his  brother's  or  sister's  son,  and  the  same  rule  of 
descent  prevails  widely  over  the  world.1 

In  two  respects  especially,  savages  may  be  accre- 
dited with  having  secured  a  certain  stability  for  their 
institutions  and  saved  them  from  some  of  the  dangers 
which  have  been  the  bane  of  more  civilised  countries. 
It  entitles  them  to  no  slight  praise  that  they  have 
generally  so  adjusted  the  relations  of  the  temporal 
and  spiritual  powers  as  to  prevent  their  clashing,  and 
have  taken  its  sting  from  taxation  by  making  the 
day  of  taxpaying  a  day  of  public  rejoicing.  In  the 
Tongan  Islands  (before  the  custom  was  abolished  by 


1  See  Klemm,  iii.  330,  for  the  custom  in  Loango ;  Reade,  Savage 
Africa,  p.  43,  for  that  in  Ashantee  ;  and  Peschel,  Races  of  Man,  p.  235, 
for  other  instances. 


158  SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE. 

a  revolutionary  king)  the  tax  of  the  annual  payment 
of  firstfruits  to  the  Tooitonga  was  almost  forgotten  in 
the  grand  ceremonies  with  which  it  was  associated, 
and  tributes  received  from  inferiors  by  chiefs  came 
as  much  as  possible  in  the  way  of  presents,  whilst 
so  far  away  as  the  Slave  Coast,  the  feast  of  tax- 
paying  is  the  great  recurring  Saturnalia  of  the  year. 
In  Dahomey  income-tax  is  '  paid  under  a  polite  dis- 
guise,' each  man  bringing  a  present  to  the  king  in 
proportion  to  his  rank,  and  at  an  annual  festival.1 
The  feast  lasts  a  whole  month  ;  public  plays  take 
place  every  four  or  five  days  ;  singers  chant  the  king's 
praises  and  the  historical  traditions  of  the  country ; 
and  the  whole  concludes  with  the  ever  popular 
African  entertainment  of  human  sacrifice,  on  an  un- 
limited scale.  In  Fiji  also  taxpaying  was  associated 
with  all  that  the  people  love ;  the  time  of  its  taking 
place  being  '  a  high  day,  a  day  for  the  best  attire,  the 
pleasantest  looks,  and  the  kindest  words ;  a  day  for 
display.'  The  Fijian  carried  his  tribute  with  every 
demonstration  of  joyful  excitement,  paying  it  in  with 
songs  and  dances  to  a  king  who  received  it  with  smiles 
and  who  provided  a  feast  for  the  happy  taxpayers. 
So  among  the  Kaffirs  the  presence  of  the  four  royal 2 
taxgatherers  in  the  town  was  the  signal  for  feasting 
and  amusements,  and  when  payment  had  been  at  last 

1  Savage  Africa,  p.  48.  a  Williams,  p.  40. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  159 

demanded  by  them  they  were  conducted  out  of  the 
town,  as  they  had  been  welcomed  into  it,  by  dancers 
and  musicians.1 

In  all  the  lower  communities  of  the  globe  the 
priest,  as  the  Shaman  who  can  invoke  rain,  who  can 
cause  or  cure  diseases,  who  can  detect  the  unknown 
thief,  or  read  the  result  of  a  coming  battle,  may  be 
revered  for  his  power  as  a  sorcerer,  but  he  seldom 
enters  into  the  scheme  of  the  body  politic  as  an 
efficient  political  force.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands, 
where  priestly  power  was  more  developed  than  else- 
where, the  priesthood,  though  not  merely  an  heredi- 
tary body  and  possessed  of  much  property  in  men 
and  lands,  but  recipients  of  the  same  servile  homage 
that  was  paid  to  the  highest  chiefs,  occupied,  never- 
theless, a  subordinate  position  to  the  governing  class. 
As  the  nation  retained  a  chief  priest  who  had  charge 
of  the  national  god,  so  each  chief  retained  his  own 
family  priest,  whose  function  it  was  to  follow  him  to 
the  battle-field  carrying  his  war-god  and  to  direct  the 
sacred  rites  of  his  house.  In  New  Zealand  the  to- 
hunga  (or  priest)  was  '  not  significative  of  a  class  sepa- 
rated from  the  rest  by  certain  distinctions  of  rank,'  but 
was  an  office  open  to  anyone.2  In  the  Tongan  Islands, 
a  priest  had  no  respect  paid  to  him  beyond  what  was 
due  to  his  family  rank,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  title 
to  the  priesthood  was  dependent  on  the  accident  of 

1  Santo,  Eastern  Ethiopia.  Pink,  xvi.  698.      2  Dieffenbach,  ii.  100. 


160  SAVAGE  POLITICAL   LIFE. 

inspiration  by  some  god.  Whenever  a  priest  invoked 
the  gods  (and  it  was  generally  on  a  person  of  the 
lower  classes  that  such  inspiration  fell),  the  chiefs,  nay, 
even  the  king  himself,  would  sit  indiscriminately 
with  the  common  people  in  a  circle  round  him,  '  on 
account  of  the  sacredness  of  the  occasion,  conceiving 
that  such  modest  demeanour  must  be  acceptable  to 
the  gods.' l  Whatever  the  priest  then  said  was  deemed 
a  declaration  of  the  god,  and,  in  accordance  with  a 
confusion  of  the  human  voice  and  the  divine,  not 
unknown  elsewhere,  the  oracle,  in  speaking,  actually 
made  use  of  the  first  person,  as  though  the  relation  of 
himself  to  the  god  were  not  merely  one  of  delegated 
authority,  but  of  real  and  complete  identification. 
Except,  however,  on  such  special  occasions,  a  Tongan 
priest  was  distinguished  by  no  particular  dress,  nor 
invested  with  any  official  privileges.  In  Fiji,  also,  the 
priests  ranked  below  the  principal  chiefs ;  and  the 
chief  priest,  though,  as  in  Tahiti,  it  was  his  office  to 
perform  the  ceremony  which  introduced  the  monarch 
to  regal  dignity,  seems  in  nowise  to  have  interfered 
afterwards  with  the  sovereignty  of  his  temporal  lord. 
It  is  remarkable  that  the  power  of  priestcraft  increases 

1  Mariner,  Tonga  Islands,  i.  I oo.  It  has  generally  been  thought  best, 
in  referring  to  books  written  some  time  ago,  to  employ  the  past  tense 
where  possibly  the  present  would  still  be  applicable.  Wherever  the 
present  is  used,  it  must  be  taken  to  refer  not  necessarily  to  the  actual 
present  but  to  the  present  of  the  original  authority  for  the  fact. 


SAVAGE  POLITICAL  LIFE.  161 

with  the  increase  of  civilisation  ;  ultimately  serving  to 
arrest  and  retard  the  growth  of  which  it  is  at  once 
a  symptom  and  a  measure. 

If  from  the  foregoing  data,  collected  from  the  best 
accredited  missionary  sources,  it  is  permissible  to 
speak  in  general  terms  of  primitive  political  life,  it 
would  appear  that  the  social  organisation  of  the  lower 
races  stands  at  a  far  higher  level  than  too  rapid  an 
inspection  would  lead  a  critic  to  suspect.  Their  in- 
stitutions are  such  as  to  presuppose  as  much  ingenuity 
in  their  evolution  as  sagacity  in  their  preservation. 
Their  despotism  is  never  so  unlimited  but  that  it 
recognises  the  existence  of  a  customary  code  beside 
and  above  it ;  nor  is  individual  liberty  ever  so  unchecked 
as  to  outweigh  the  advantages  or  imperil  the  existence 
of  a  life  in  common.  In  short,  the  subordination  of 
classes,  the  belief  in  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  in 
differences  ordained  by  nature  between  nobles  and 
populace,  the  principle  of  hereditary  government 
(often  so  firmly  fixed  that  not  even  women  are  ex- 
cluded from  the  highest  offices),  the  prevalence  of 
feudalism  with  its  ever-recurring  wars  and  revolutions, 
not  only  prove  an  identity  of  social  instinct  which  is 
irrespective  of  latitude  or  race,  but  prove  also  among 
the  lower  races  the  existence  of  a  capacity  for  self- 
government,  which  is  disturbing  to  all  preconceptions 
derived  from  accounts  of  their  manners  and  supersti- 
tions in  other  relations  of  life. 

M 


162 


VI. 

SAVAGE    PENAL  LAWS. 

IF,  interpreting  the  present  by  the  past,  and  taking  as 
our  standard  of  the  past  contemporary  savage  life,  we 
endeavour  to  gain  some  insight  into  the  origin  of 
those  legal  customs  and  ideas  which  are  so  inter- 
woven with  our  civilisation,  the  statements  of  travel- 
lers relating  to  the  judicial  institutions  of  savage  tribes 
gain  considerably  in  interest  and  value.  For  savage 
modes  of  redressing  injuries,  of  assessing  punishment, 
of  discovering  truth,  reveal  not  a  few  striking  points 
of  resemblance  and  of  contrast  to  the  practices  pre- 
valent in  civilised  communities ;  whilst  they  serve  at 
the  same  time  to  illustrate  the  natural  laws  at  work  in 
the  evolution  of  society. 

The  different  stages  of  progress  from  the  lowest 
social  state,  where  the  redress  of  wrongs  is  left  to 
individual  force  or  cunning,  to  the  state  where  the 
wrongs  of  individuals  are  regarded  and  punished  as 
wrongs  to  the  community  at  large,  may  be  all  ob- 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  163 

served  in  the  customs  of  modern  or  recent  savage 
tribes.  Yet  instances  where  the  redress  of  wrongs  is 
purely  a  matter  of  personal  retaliation  are  not  really 
numerous,  occurring  chiefly  where  the  rulership  of  a 
tribe  is  ill-defined  and  is  an  exercise  of  influence 
rather  than  authority,  as  among  the  Esquimaux, 
the  Kamschadals,  and  some  Californian  and  other 
American  tribes.  In  such  states  of  society,  though 
some  political  sovereignty  is  vested  in  the  heads  of 
the  different  families,  they  have  but  little  power  either 
to  make  commands  or  to  inflict  punishments,  so  that 
self-help  is  for  individuals  the  first  rule  of  existence. 
But  generally  this  deficiency  in  the  legal  protection 
of  life  and  property  is  made  up  for  by  a  principle  which 
lies  at  the  root  of  savage  law — the  principle,  that  is, 
of  collective  responsibility,  of  including  in  the  guilt  of 
an  individual  all  his  blood  relations  jointly  or  singly. 
This  consideration  of  crimes  as  family  or  tribal 
rather  than  as  personal  matters,  (the  duty  of  satisfying 
the  family  or  tribe  of  anyone  injured  devolving  upon 
the  family  or  tribe  of  the  wrongdoer,)  must  have 
tended  in  the  earliest  times  to  withdraw  attention  from 
the  merely  personal  aspect  of  injuries  and  to  direct  it 
to  their  more  social  relations.  The  common  test  of 
likelihood  is  no  bad  guide  in  ethnology;  and  the 
difficulty  of  conceiving  any  society  of  men,  even  the 
most  savage,  living  together  absolutely  unaffected 
by,  or  uninterested  in,  wrongs  done  by  one  of  their 

M  2 


164  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

members  to  another,  is  only  equalled  by  the  difficulty 
of  finding  credible  records  of  any  such  community. 
Even  in  Kamschatka,  where  the  head  of  an  ostrog 
had  only  the  power  to  punish  verbally,  a  man  caught 
stealing  was  held  so  infamous,  that  no  one  would  be- 
friend him,  and  he  had  to  live  thenceforth  alone  with- 
out help  from  anybody  ;  whilst,  if  the  habit  seemed 
inveterate,  the  thief  was  bound  to  a  tree,  and  his 
arms  bound  by  a  piece  of  birch-bark  to  a  pole 
stretched  crosswise  ;  the  bark  was  then  ignited,  and 
the  man's  hands,  thereby  branded,  marked  his  cha- 
racter in  future  to  all  who  might  be  interested  in 
knowing  it.1  Even  in  so  rude  a  tribe  as  the  Brazilian 
Topanazes,  a  murderer  of  a  fellow-tribesman  would 
be  conducted  by  his  relations  to  those  of  the  deceased, 
to  be  by  them  forthwith  strangled  and  buried,  in 
satisfaction  of  their  rights ;  the  two  families  eating 
together  for  several  days  after  the  event  as  though 
for  the  purpose  of  reconciliation.2  And  several  other 
tribes,  destitute  of  any  chiefs  possessing  the  power  or 
right  to  judge  or  punish,  have  fixed  customs  regu- 
lating such  offences  as  theft  or  murder.  Thus  the 
Nootka  Indians  avenge  or  compound  for  punishable 
acts,  though  their  chiefs  have  little  or  no  voice  in  the 
matter.  Where,  as  among  the  Haidahs  of  Columbia, 
crime  likewise  has  no  legal  punishment,  murder  being 
simply  an  affair  to  be  settled  with  the  robbed 

1  Steller,  Kamschatka,  p.  356.          2  Eschwege,  Brazilien,  i.  221. 


SAVAGE  PENAL   LAWS.  165 

family,  we  may  detect  the  beginnings  of  later  legal 
practices  in  the  occasional  agreement  among  the 
leading  men  to  put  to  death  disagreeable  members 
of  the  tribe,  such  as  medicine-men,  and  other  great 
offenders.1  So  that  wherever,  from  causes  of  war  or 
otherwise,  tribal  chieftaincy  has  become  at  all  fixed 
and  powerful,  we  may  expect  to  find  the  chief  or  chiefs 
called  upon  to  settle  disputes  between  individuals  or 
families  ;  and  thus  gradually  a  way  would  be  found  for 
the  addition  of  judicial  functions  to  the  more  primary 
duties  of  government. 

From  this  natural  tendency  of  submitting  disputed 
claims  or  the  measure  of  redress  to  the  decision  of  a 
single  chieftain  or  of  several,  the  personal  right  of 
retaliation  would  soon  become  a  tribal  one ;  and 
though  ignorant  of  the  science  of  jurisprudence,  most 
savage  tribes  seem  early  to  have  learnt  to  treat  torts 
or  offences  against  an  individual  as  crimes  or  offences 
against  the  community,  taking  as  their  standard  of 
punishment  the  measure  of  the  wrong  done  to  the  in- 
dividual. The  transfer  of  sovereignty  from  smaller 
units  to  the  tribe  is  clearly  marked  in  instances  where 
the  chiefs  of  a  tribe  try  crimes  and  decide  guilt,  but 
leave  the  punishment  of  the  offender  to  the  discretion 
of  the  injured  persons  or  family  ;  of  which  the  follow- 
ing are  characteristic  illustrations. 

According  to  Catlin,  every  Indian  tribe  he  visited 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races  of  Pacific  States,  i.  168. 


166  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

had  a  council-house  in  the  middle  of  their  village, 
where  the  chiefs  would  assemble,  as  well  for  the  in- 
vestigation of  crimes  as  for  public  business,  giving 
decisions  after  trial  concerning  capital  offences,  but 
leaving  the  punishment  to  the  nearest  of  kin,  to  be  in- 
flicted by  him  under  the  penalty  of  social  disgrace, 
but  free  from  any  control  by  them  as  to  time,  place, 
or  manner.1  So  also  on  the  Gold  Coast,  where  suits 
lay  at  the  decision  of  the  caboceros  or  chiefs,  the 
original  conception  of  murder  appears  clearly,  in  the 
practice  for  the  murderer  to  get  generally  from  the 
relations  of  the  deceased  some  abatement  of  the 
pecuniary  penalty  affixed  by  law  to  his  crime ;  they 
being  the  only  persons  the  criminal  had  to  agree  with, 
and  free  to  take  from  him  as  little  as  they  pleased, 
whilst  the  king  had  no  pretence  to  any  share  of  the 
fine  except  what  he  might  get  for  his  trouble  in 
exacting  it.2  In  the  Central  African  kingdom  of 
Bornou,  a  convicted  murderer  was  handed  over  to 
the  discretional  revenge  of  the  murdered  man's 
family.3  In  Samoa,  again,  the  chief  of  a  village  and 
the  heads  of  families,  forming  as  they  did  the  judicial 
as  well  as  legislative  body,  might  condemn  a  culprit 
to  sit  for  hours  naked  in  the  sun,  to  be  hung  by 
his  head,  to  take  five  bites  from  a  pungent  root,  or  to 
play  at  ball  with  a  prickly  sea-urchin,  according  to 

1  Catlin,  ii.  240.         *  Pinkerton.     Bosman,  Guinea,  xvi.  406. 
*  Denham,  Discoveries  in  Africa,  i.  167. 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  167 

the  nature  of  his  offence.  But  one  punishment  was 
especially  remarkable,  as  showing  how  the  right  of 
punishment  originally  belonging  to  the  family  may 
survive  in  form  long  after  it  has  in  reality  passed  to 
a  wider  political  union.  This  was  the  punishment 
of  binding  a  criminal  hand  and  foot  and  carrying 
him  suspended  from  a  prickly  pole  run  through 
between  his  hands  and  feet,  to  the  family  of  the 
village  against  which  he  had  transgressed,  and  there 
depositing  him  before  them,  as  if  to  signify  that  he  lay 
at  their  mercy.1  And  in  the  villages  of  Afghanistan, 
where  an  assembly  of  the  elders  act  as  the  judges  of 
the  people,  a  show  is  always  made  of  delivering  up 
the  criminal  to  the  accuser  and  of  giving  the  latter 
the  chance  of  retaliating,  though  it  is  perfectly  under- 
stood that  he  must  comply  with  the  wishes  of  the 
assembly.  This  instance,  therefore,  illustrates  the  two 
distinct  methods  of  legal  punishment  in  process  of 
actual  transition  from  one  to  the  other.2 

If  then  the  original  standard  of  punishment  was 
just  that  amount  of  severity  which  would  suffice  to 
prevent  individuals  from  seeking  satisfaction  by  their 
private  efforts  and  avenging  their  own  wrongs,  it  is 
intelligible  that  penal  customs  should  be  cruel  in  pro- 
portion to  their  primitiveness.  It  is  distinctly  stated 
that  in  Samoa  fines  in  food  and  property  gra- 

1  Turner,  Polynesia,  p.  286.  *  Elphinstone,  Caubul,  ii.  223. 


1 68  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

dually  superseded  more  severe  penalties.  Yet,  in 
the  face  of  the  very  varying  penalties  found  in  most 
different  conditions  of  culture,  it  is  a  subject  on  which 
it  is  difficult  to  lay  down  any  rule.  Sometimes 
murder  alone  is  a  capital  crime,  sometimes  theft, 
witchcraft,  and  adultery  as  well ;  sometimes  all  or 
some  of  them  are  commutable  by  fine.  Nor  does  it 
seem  that,  wherever  an  offence  is  punishable  by  fine, 
the  penalty  has  been  mitigated  from  one  originally 
more  severe.  In  some  cases  the  chief  judges  may 
have  found  their  interest  in  assessing  a  more  humane, 
and  to  themselves  more  profitable,  forfeit  than  that  of 
life  or  limb  ;  but  savages,  living  in  the  most  primitive 
conditions,  seem  to  have  been  led  by  their  natural 
reason  alone  to  observe  fitting  proportions  between 
crime  and  retribution.  For  their  punishments,  in 
default  generally  of  imprisonment  or  banishment,  are 
not  as  a  rule  gratuitously  cruel :  though  as  occasional 
punishments  among  the  Caffres  are  mentioned  the 
application  of  hot  stones  to  the  naked  body,  or  ex- 
posure to  the  torments  of  ants  ; l  and  slavery,  so 
common  a  punishment  in  Africa,  far  from  being  es- 
sentially cruel,  is  rather  a  sign  of  an  amelioration 
of  manners,  of  a  reasonable  willingness  to  take  the 
useful  satisfaction  of  a  man's  labour  in  lieu  of  the 
useless  one  of  his  life.  Severity  of  the  penal  code 
would  rather  seem  to  be  a  concomitant  of  growth 

1  Thompson,  South  Africa,  ii.  351. 


SAVAGE  PENAL   LAWS.  169 

in  civilisation,  of  stronger  and  deeper  moral  feelings, 
of  a  sense  of  the  failure  of  milder  means,  than  of  a 
really  primitive  savagery.  On  the  whole  continent 
of  America  no  savage  tribe  ever  approached  the 
Aztecs  in  cruelty  of  punishment,  nor  is  it  among 
people  of  a  ruder  type  of  culture  that  we  should  ever 
look  to  find  some  form  of  death  the  penalty  alike  for 
the  lightest  as  for  the  gravest  crimes,  for  slander  no 
less  than  for  adultery,  for  intoxication  as  much  as  for 
homicide.1 

It  might  naturally  be  inferred  that,  because  the 
laws  of  savages  are  unwritten  and  depend  on  usage 
alone  for  their  preservation,  therefore  they  are  entirely 
uncertain  and  arbitrary.  This,  however,  is  not  often 
the  case.  On  few  points  are  the  statements  of  travel- 
lers less  vague  than  on  the  details  of  native  penal 
customs ;  a  fact  which  is  only  compatible  with  their 
being  both  well  known  and  regularly  enforced.  What 
the  Abbe  Froyart  says  of  the  natives  of  Loango, 
may  be  said  of  all  but  the  lowest  tribes  :  '  There  is  no 
one  ignorant  of  the  cases  which  incur  the  pain  of 
death,  and  of  those  for  which  the  offender  becomes 
the  slave  of  the  person  offended.' 2  The  laws  of  the 
Caffre  tribes  are  said  to  be  a  collection  of  precedents, 
of  decisions  of  bygone  chiefs  and  councils,  appealing 
solely  to  what  has  been  customary  in  the  past,  never  to 

1  See  Bancroft,  ii.  454-472,  for  the  penal  code  of  the  Aztecs. 

2  Pinkerton.     Froyart,  History  of  Loango,  xvi.  581. 


1 70  SAVAGE  PENAL   LAWS. 

the  abstract  merits  of  the  case.  There  appears,  it  is 
said,  to  be  no  uncertainty  whatever  in  their  administra- 
tion, the  criminality  of  different  acts  being  measured 
exactly  by  a  fixed  number  of  cattle  payable  in  atone- 
ment. And  the  customs  reported  from  Ashantee 
manifest  a  similar  sense  of  the  value  of  fixed  penalties. 
An  Ashantee  is  at  liberty  to  kill  his  slave,  but  is 
punished  if  he  kills  his  wife  or  child ;  only  a  chief  can 
sell  his  wife  or  put  her  to  death  for  infidelity  ;  whilst 
a  great  man  who  kills  his  equal  in  rank  is  generally 
suffered  to  die  by  his  own  hands.  If  a  man  brings 
a  frivolous  accusation  against  another,  he  must  give 
an  entertainment  to  the  family  and  friends  of  the 
accused  ;  if  he  breaks  an  Aggry  bead  in  a  scuffle,  he 
must  pay  seven  slaves  to  the  owner.  A  wife  who 
betrays  a  secret  forfeits  her  upper  lip,  an  ear  if  she 
listens  to  a  private  conversation  of  her  husband.1 
Savage  also  as  is  the  kingdom  of  Dahomey,  arbitrary 
power  is  so  far  limited,  that  no  sentence  of  death 
or  slavery,  adjudged  by  an  assembly  of  chiefs,  can 
be  carried  out  without  confirmation  from  the  throne  ; 
and  such  a  sentence  '  must  be  executed  in  the  capital, 
and  notice  given  of  it  by  the  public  crier  in  the 
market'  It  is  no  paradox  to  say,  that  human  life,  even 
in  Dahomey,  enjoys  more  efficient  legal  protection  at 
this  day  than  it  did  in  England  in  times  long  sub- 
sequent to  the  signature  of  Magna  Charta. 

1  Hutton,  Voyage  to  Africa,  p.  319. 


SAVAGE  PENAL   LAWS.  171 

The  forms  of  legal  procedure  manifest  often  no 
less  regularity  than  the  laws  themselves.  In  Congo 
the  plaintiff  opens  his  case  on  his  knees  to  the  judge, 
who  sits  under  a  tree  or  in  a  great  straw  hut  built  on 
purpose,  holding  a  staff  of  authority  in  his  hand. 
When  he  has  heard  the  plaintiff's  evidence  he  hears 
the  defendant,  then  calls  the  witnesses,  and  decides 
accordingly.  The  successful  suitor  pays  a  sum  to 
the  judge's  box,  and  stretches  himself  at  full  length 
on  the  ground  to  testify  his  gratitude.1  In  Loango, 
the  king,  acting  as  judge,  has  several  assessors  to 
consult  in  difficult  cases,  and  the  suit  begins  by  both 
parties  making  a  present  to  the  king,  who  then  pro- 
ceeds to  hear  in  turn  plaintiff,  defendant,  and  wit- 
nesses. In  default  of  witnesses  the  affair  is  deferred, 
spies  being  sent  to  gather  ampler  information  and 
ground  for  judgment  from  the  talk  of  the  people.  In 
the  public  trials  of  Ashantee  '  the  accused  is  always 
heard  fully,  and  is  obliged  either  to  commit  or  excul- 
pate himself  on  every  point.'  On  the  Gold  Coast  a 
plaintiff  would  sometimes  defer  his  suit  for  thirty 
years,  letting  it  devolve  on  his  heirs,  if  the  judges, 
the  caboceros,  from  interested  motives,  delayed  to 
grant  him  a  trial  and  thus  obliged  him  to  wait,  in 
hopes  of  finding  less  impartial  or  else  more  amenable 
judges  in  the  future.2 

1  Pinkerton,  xvi.  242,  in  Merolla's  Voyage  to  Congo. 

2  Pinkerton.    Bosnian,    Guinea,    xvi.  405.     For  an  account  of  a 
savage  law  suit,  see  Maclean's  Caffre  Laws  and  Customs,  pp.  38-43. 


172  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

Several  rules  of  savage  jurisprudence  betray 
curiously  different  notions  of  equity  from  those  of 
more  civilised  lands.  The  Abbe"  Froyart  was  shocked 
that,  on  the  complaint  of  the  missionaries  to  the 
King  of  Loango  of  nocturnal  disturbances  round 
their  dwellings,  the  king  should  have  issued  an  ordi- 
nance making  the  disturbance  of  the  missionaries' 
repose  a  capital  crime.  The  reason  the  natives  gave 
him  for  thus  putting  slight  offences  on  an  equality 
with  grave  ones  was,  that,  in  proportion  to  the  ease 
of  abstinence  from  anything  forbidden,  or  of  the 
performance  of  anything  commanded  was  the  in- 
excusableness  of  disobedience  and  the  deserved 
severity  of  punishment.  Again,  impartiality  with 
regard  to  rank  or  wealth,  which  is  now  regarded  in 
England  as  a  self-evident  principle  of  justice,  as  a 
primary  instinct  of  equity,  is  by  no  means  so  regarded 
by  savages  ;  for  not  only  is  murder  often  atoned  for 
according  to  the  rank  of  the  murderer,  as  on  the 
Gold  Coast  or  in  old  Anglo-Saxon  law,  on  the  basis, 
apparently,  of  the  value  to  the  individual  of  his  loss 
in  death,  but  such  difference  of  rank  sometimes  enters 
into  the  estimate  of  the  due  punishment  for  robbery. 
Thus  the  Guinea  Coast  negroes  thought  it  reasonable 
to  punish  rich  persons  guilty  of  robbery  more  severely 
than  the  poor,  because,  they  said,  the  rich  were  not 
urged  to  it  by  necessity,  and  could  better  spare  the 
money-fines  laid  on  them.  Caffre  law  distinguishes 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  173 

broadly   and   clearly   between    injuries   to   a   man's 
person  and  injuries  to  his  property,  accounting  the 
former  as  offences  against  the  chief  to  whom  he  be- 
longs,   and  making  such  chief  sole   recipient  of  all 
fines,  allowing  only  personal  redress  where  a  man's 
property  has  been  damaged.     Thus  Caffre  law  divides 
itself  into  lines  bearing  some  analogy  to  those  of  our 
criminal   and   civil   law :    such   offences   as   treason, 
murder,    assault,    and    witchcraft    entering   into   the 
criminal  code,  and  constituting  injuries  to  the  actual 
sufferer's  chief;  whilst  adultery,  slander,  and  other 
forms  of  theft,  enter  as  it  were  into  the  civil  law,  as 
injuries  for  which  there  are  direct  personal  remedies.1 
The  almost  universal  test  among  savages  of  guilt 
or  innocence,  where  there  is  a  want  or   conflict  of 
evidence,  is  the  ordeal.     At  first  sight  it  would  ap- 
pear that  such  a  practice  presupposes  a  belief  in  a 
personal  supernatural  deity — that  it  is,  in  fact,  as  it 
was  in   the   middle   ages,    a  judgment   of  God,  an 
appeal  to  His  decision.     If  so,  a  theistic  belief  would 
be  of  wide  extent,  for  the  ordeal  is  common  to  very 
low  strata  of  culture;   but,  in  consideration   of  the 
savage  belief  in  the  personality  and  consciousness  of 
natural  objects  or  in  spirits  animating  them,  it  would 
seem  best  to  regard  the  ordeal  simply  as  a  direct 
appeal  to  the  decision  of  such  objects  or  spirits  them- 
selves, or  through  such  objects  to  the  decision  of  dead 

1  Maclean,  Caffre  Laws,  p.  34. 


174  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

ancestors,  a  means  for  the  discovery  of  truth  that 
would  naturally  suggest  itself  to  the  shamanic  class. 
For  it  is  at  the  peril  of  his  life  that  a  shaman,  or 
priest,  asserts  a  title  to  superior  power  and  wisdom ; 
and  as  his  skill  is  tested  in  every  need  or  peril  that 
occurs,  he  is  naturally  as  often  called  upon  to  detect 
hidden  guilt  as  to  bring  rain  from  the  clouds,  or  drive 
sickness  from  the  body.  Driven,  therefore,  to  his 
inventive  resources  by  the  demands  made  upon  him, 
he  thinks  out  a  test  which  he  may  really  consider  just, 
or  which,  by  proving  fatal  to  the  suspected,  may 
place  alike  his  ingenuity  and  the  verdict  beyond  the 
reach  of  challenge.  Such  ordeals  not  only  often  elicit 
true  confessions  of  guilt  by  the  very  terror  they 
inspire,  so  that,  according  to  Merolla,  it  sufficed  for 
the  Congo  wizards  to  issue  proclamations  for  a 
restitution  of  stolen  property  under  the  threat  of 
otherwise  resorting  to  their  arts  of  detection,  but  they 
are  valuable  in  themselves  to  the  shamanic  class  from 
being  easily  adapted  to  the  destruction  of  an  enemy 
and  offering  a  ready  channel  for  the  influx  of  wealth. 
A  comparison  of  some  of  these  tests,  which  decide 
guilt  not  by  an  appeal  to  the  fear  of  falsehood,  as  an 
oath  does,  but  by  what  is  really  an  appeal  to  the 
verdict  of  chance,  will  display  so  strong  a  family 
resemblance,  together  with  so  many  local  peculiarities,, 
as  to  make  the  origin  suggested  appear  not  improb- 
able. 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  175 

Bosman  mentions  the  following  ordeals  as  cus- 
tomary on  the  Gold  Coast  in  offences  of  a  trivial 
character : 

1.  Stroking  a  red-hot  copper   arm-ring  over  the 

tongue  of  the  suspected  person. 

2.  Squirting  a  vegetable  juice  into  his  eye. 

3.  Drawing  a  greased  fowl's  feather  through  his 

tongue. 

4.  Making  him  draw  cocks'  quills  from  a  clod  of 

earth. 

Innocence  was  staked  on  the  innocuousness  of  the 
two  former  proceedings,  on  the  facility  of  the  execu- 
tion of  the  two  latter.  For  great  crimes  the  water 
ordeal  was  employed,  a  certain  river  being  endowed 
with  the  quality  of  wafting  innocent  persons  across  it, 
how  little  soever  they  could  swim,  and  of  only  drown- 
ing the  guilty.1 

Livingstone  mentions  the  anxiety  of  negro  women, 
suspected  by  their  husbands  of  having  bewitched 
them,  to  drink  a  poisonous  infusion  prepared  by  the 
shaman,  and  to  submit  their  lives  to  the  effect  of  this 
drink  on  their  bodies;  a  judicial  method  strikingly 
similar  to  the  test  of  bitter  waters  ordained  in  the 
Book  of  Numbers  to  decide  the  guilt  of  Jewish  wives 
whom  their  husbands  had  reason  to  suspect  of  in- 
fidelity. The  Barotse  tribe,  in  Africa,  who  judge  of 

1  Pinkerton,  xvi.  259. 


176  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

the  guilt  of  an  accused  person  by  the  effect  of  medicine 
poured  down  the  throat  of  a  dog  or  cock,  manifest 
more  humanity  in  their  system  of  detection.1 

But  perhaps  the  best  collection  of  African  ordeals 
is  that  given  in  the  voyage  of  the  Capuchin  Merolla 
to  Congo  in  1682.  In  case  of  treason  a  shaman 
would  present  a  compound  of  vegetable  juices,  serpents' 
flesh,  and  such  things  to  the  delinquent,  who  would 
die  if  he  were  guilty,  but  not  otherwise  ;  it  being  of 
course  open  to  the  administrator  to  omit  at  will  the 
poisonous  ingredients.  Innocence  was  further  proved, 
if  a  man  suffered  nothing  from  a  red-hot  iron  passed 
over  his  leg,  if  he  felt  no  bad  effects  from  chewing  the 
root  of  the  banana,  from  eating  the  poisoned  fruit  of 
a  certain  palm,  from  drinking  water  in  which  a  torch 
of  bitumen  or  a  red-hot  iron  had  been  quenched,  or 
from  drawing  a  stone  out  of  boiling  water.  The  crime 
of  theft  was  proved  by  the  ignition  or  the  non-ignition 
of  a  long  thread  held  at  either  end  by  the  shaman 
and  the  accused,  on  the  application  of  a  red-hot  iron 
to  the  middle.  Among  the  Bongo  tribe  a  murder  is 
often  traced  to  its  source,  by  making  plastic  repre- 
sentations so  closely  resembling  the  victim,  that  at  a 
feast  given  with  dances  and  songs  the  criminal  will 
generally  manifest  a  desire  to  leave  the  company.2 

So  great  in  general  is  the  dread  of  such  ordeals, 

1  Livingstone,  South.  Africa,  pp.  621,  642. 

2  Schweinfurth,  Heart  of  Africa,  i.  285. 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  177 

that  they  often  actually  serve  as  the  most  potent 
instruments  for  the  discovery  of  crimes.  In  the  king- 
dom of  Loango  was  kept  a  fetich  in  a  large  basket 
before  which  all  cases  of  theft  and  murder  were 
tried ;  and  when  any  great  man  died,  a  whole  town 
would  be  compelled  to  offer  themselves  for  trial  for  his 
murder  by  kissing  and  embracing  the  image,  in  the 
fear  of  falling  down  dead  if  they  fancied  themselves 
guilty.  In  the  space  of  one  year  Andrew  Battel  wit- 
nessed the  death  of  many  natives  in  this  way. 

In  the  Tongan  Islands  the  king  Avould  call  the 
people  together,  and,  after  washing  his  hands  in  a 
wooden  bowl,  command  everyone  to  touch  it.  From 
a  firm  belief  that  touching  the  bowl,  in  case  of  guilt, 
would  cause  instantaneous  death,  refusal  to  touch  it 
amounted  to  conviction.1 

Among  the  Fijians,  distinguished  in  so  many 
points  from  other  savages  by  originality  of  conception, 
the  ordeal  of  the  scarf  was  the  one  of  greatest  dread, 
extorting  confession,  it  is  said,  as  effectually  as  a 
threat  of  the  rack  might  have  done.  The  chief  or 
judge,  having  called  for  a  scarf,  would  proceed,  if  the 
culprit  did  not  confess  at  the  sight  of  it,  to  wave  it  above 
his  head,  till  he  had  caught  the  man's  soul,  bereft  of 
which  the  culprit  would  be  sure  ultimately  to  pine 
away  and  die.2 

1  Klemm,  Culturgeschichte,  iii.  334.          '  Williams,  Fiji,  p.  250. 

N 


178  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

Among  the  ordeals  of  the  Sandwich  Islanders  was 
one  called  the  '  shaking-water.'  The  accused  persons, 
sitting  round  a  calabash  full  of  water,  were  required 
in  turns  to  hold  their  hands  above  it,  that  the  priest, 
by  watching  the  water,  might  detect,  when  it  trembled, 
the  presence  of  guilt.  On  the  Society  Islands  the 
ordeal  only  differed  slightly,  the  priest  reading  in  the 
water  the  reflected  image  of  the  thief,  after  prayer  to 
the  gods  to  cause  his  spirit  to  be  present.  The  mere 
report  that  such  a  measure  had  been  resorted  to  often 
led  to  timely  restitutions  of  stolen  goods.1 

In  Sardinia  there  is,  or  was,  a  well,  the  waters  of 
which  were  supposed  to  blind  a  person  suspected  of 
robbery  or  lying,  if  he  were  guilty ;  otherwise  to 
strengthen  and  improve  his  sight.2 

The  above  instances,  remarkable  for  their  practical 
efficiency  no  less  than  for  their  puerile  ingenuity, 
suffice  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  savage  judicial  ordeals 
and  the  extreme  variety  displayed  in  their  invention. 
The  identity  of  many  ordeals  among  different  people, 
such  as  that  by  fire  or  water,  is  probably  due  to  the 
readiness  with  which  such  tests  would  suggest  them- 
selves to  the  imagination.  '  He  who,  holding  fire  in 
his  hand,'  said  the  Indian  law,  '  is  not  burnt,  or  who, 
diving  under  water,  is  not  soon  forced  up  by  it,  must 
be  held  veracious  in  his  testimony  upon  oath ; '  and 

1  Ellis,  Polynesian  P,(searches,  i.  378;  iv.  423. 

2  Pinkerton,  xvi.  690. 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  179 

the  same  was  the  idea  in  China  and  Africa  as  well 
as  in  Europe.  That  these  ordeals,  like  others,  were 
originated  by  the  class  of  shamans,  and  were  tradition- 
ally preserved  by  them  as  one  of  the  sources  of  their 
power,  derives  probability  from  their  close  analogy 
to  the  judicial  ordeals  invented  and  administered  by 
the  priests  of  early  Europe.  The  trial  by  the  hal- 
lowed morsel,  which  decided  guilt  by  the  effects  of 
swallowing  a  piece  of  hallowed  bread  or  cheese  ;  the 
trial  by  the  cross,  when  both  accuser  and  accused 
were  placed  under  a  cross  with  their  arms  extended, 
and  the  wrong  adjudged  to  him  who  first  let  his  hands 
fall  ;  or  the  trial  by  the  two  dice,  when  innocence 
was  proved  if  the  first  dice  taken  at  hazard  bore  the 
sign  of  the  cross — though  they  may  have  been  meta- 
morphosed heathen  ordeals,  seem  rather  to  have  been 
of  pure  Christian  invention;  nor  are  they  distinguished 
in  any  point  above  corresponding  practices  on  the 
coast  of  Guinea,  except  in  this,  that  they  were  called 
the  judgments  of  God,  and  implied  some  belief  in  a 
personal  spirit,  who  could  and  would  control  the  ver- 
dict of  chance  to  prove  guilt  or  innocence.1 

As  in  Europe  after  the  fifteenth  century  the  oath 
of  canonical  purgation  gradually  displaced  the  older 


1  Wuttke,  Geschichte  des  Heidenthums,  p.  102,  speaking  of  savage 
ordeals,  says  :  '  Wir  konnen  nicht  sagen,  class  ein  monotheistischer 
Gedankehier  vorhanden  sei ;  die  Menschen  glauben  an  die  Gerechtigkeit 
des  Schicksals  noch  nicht  an  einen  gerechten  Gott.' 


180  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

system  of  ordeals,  so  it  would  seem  that  in  savage  life 
too  the  judicial  oath  succeeds  in  order  of  time  the 
judicial  ordeal.  An  oath  implies  a  prayer,  an  invoca- 
tion of  punishment  in  case  of  perjury  ;  and  a  man's 
conscience  is  evidently  more  •  directly  appealed  to 
where  his  guilt  is  tested  to  some  extent  by  his  own 
confession,  than  where  it  is  decided  by  something 
quite  external  to  himself. 

The  witness  in  a  modern  English  law  court,  invok- 
ing upon  himself  divine  wrath  if  he  swear  falsely  by 
the  book  he  kisses,  preserves  with  curious  exactitude 
the  judicial  oath  of  savage  times  and  lands.  Our 
English  judicial  oath,  in  use  though  no  longer  com- 
pulsory, has  withstood  all  attacks  upon  it,  for  the  in- 
superable practical  reason  that  the  majority  of  men 
are  more  afraid  of  swearing  falsely  than  of  speaking 
falsely,  and  that  the  fewer  scruples  a  man  feels  about 
lying,  the  more  he  is  likely  to  feel  about  perjur)'. 
The  notion  that  one  is  morally  worse  than  the  other 
is  probably  due  to  the  imaginary  terrors  which,  associ- 
ated time  out  of  mind  with  perjury,  have  given  it  a 
legal  existence  apart,  and  made  it,  so  to  speak,  a  kind 
of  lying-extraordinary,  a  crime  outside  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  humanity. 

In  Samoa,  as  at  Westminster,  physical  contact 
with  a  thing  adds  vast  weight  to  the  value  of  a  man's 
evidence.  Turner  relates  how  in  turn  each  person 
suspected  of  a  theft  was  obliged  before  the  chiefs  to 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  181 

touch  a  sacred  drinking-cup,  made  of  cocoa-nut,  and 
to  invoke  destruction  upon  himself  if  he  were  the 
thief.  The  formula  ran  :  'With  my  hand  on  this  cup, 
may  the  god  look  upon  me  and  send  swift  destruction 
if  I  took  the  thing  which  has  been  stolen.'  '  Before 
this  ordeal  the  truth  was  rarely  concealed,'  it  being 
firmly  believed  that  death  would  ensue,  were  the  cup 
touched  and  a  lie  told.  Or  the  suspected  would  first 
place  a  handful  of  grass  on  the  stone  or  other  repre- 
sentative of  the  village  god,  and  laying  his  hands  on 
it,  say,  '  In  the  presence  of  our  chiefs  now  assembled, 
I  lay  my  hand  on  the  stone  ;  if  I  stole  the  thing,  may 
I  speedily  die,'  the  grass  being  a  symbolical  curse  of 
the  destruction  he  invoked  on  all  his  family,  of  the 
grass  that  might  grow  over  their  dwellings.  The 
older  ordeal  of  fixing  the  guilt  upon  a  person  to  whom 
the  face  of  a  spun  cocoa-nut  pointed  when  it  rested, 
shows  how  ordeals  may  survive  in  use  after  the  attain- 
ment of  judicial  oaths  and  contemporaneously  with 
them.1 

To  understand  the  binding  force  of  oaths  among 
savages  it  is  necessary  to  observe  how  closely  con- 
nected they  are  with  savage  ideas  of  fetichism  and 
their  belief  in  witchcraft  as  a  really  active  natural 
force.  The  hair  or  food  of  a  man,  which  a  savage 
burns  to  rid  himself  of  an  enemy,  is  no  mere  symbol 
of  that  enemy  so  much  as  in  some  sense  that  enemy 

1  Turner,  Polynesia,  pp.  215,  241,  293. 


1 82  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

himself.  The  physical  act  of  touching  the  thing 
invoked  has  reference  to  feelings  of  casual  connection 
between  things,  as  in  Samoa,  where  a  man,  to  attest 
his  veracity,  would  touch  his  eyes,  to  indicate  a  wish 
that  blindness  might  strike  him  if  he  lied,  or  would 
dig  a  hole  in  the  ground,  to  indicate  a  wish  that  he 
might  be  buried  in  the  event  of  falsehood.  In  Kam- 
schatka,  if  a  thief  remained  undetected,  the  elders 
would  summon  all  the  ostrog  together,  young  and 
old,  and,  forming  a  circle  round  the  fire,  cause  certain 
incantations  to  be  employed.  After  the  incantations 
the  sinews  of  the  back  and  feet  of  a  wild  sheep  were 
thrown  into  the  fire  with  magical  words,  and  the  wish 
expressed  that  the  hands  and  feet  of  the  culprit  might 
grow  crooked  ;  there  being  apparently  a  connection 
assumed  between  the  action  of  the  fire  on  the  animal's 
sinews  and  on  the  limbs  of  the  man.  And  in  Sweden 
there  are  still  cunning  men  who  can  deprive  a  real 
thief  of  his  eye,  by  cutting  a  human  figure  on  the  bark 
of  a  tree  and  driving  nails  and  arrows  into  the  repre- 
sentative feature.  But  perhaps  the  best  illustration 
of  this  feeling  is  the  practice  of  the  Ostiaks,  who  offer 
their  wives,  if  they  suspect  them  of  infidelity,  a  hand- 
ful of  bear's  hairs,  believing  that,  if  they  touch  them 
and  are  guilty,  they  will  be  bitten  by  a  bear  within 
the  space  of  three  days.  It  would  seem  that  oaths 
appeal  to  the  same  idea  of  vicarious  or  representa- 
tive influence,  a  real  but  invisible  connection  being 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  183 

imagined  between  the  actual  thing  touched  and  the 
calamity  invoked  in  touching  it. 

Instances  from  the  oaths  of  other  tribes  will  mani- 
fest the  operation  of  the  same  feeling  as  that  which 
makes  grass  a  symbol  of  utter  ruin  in  Samoa,  or  some 
bear's  hairs  of  a  bear's  bite  among  the  Ostiaks. 

North  Asiatic  tribes  have  in  use  three  kinds  of 
oaths,  the  first  and  least  solemn  one  being  for  the 
accused  to  face  the  sun  with  a  knife,  pretending  to  fight 
against  it,  and  to  cry  aloud,  '  If  I  am  guilty,  may  the 
sun  cause  sickness  to  rage  in  my  body  like  this  knife  ! ' 
The  second  form  of  oath  is  to  cry  aloud  from  the  tops 
of  certain  mountains,  invoking  death,  loss  of  children 
and  cattle,  or  bad  luck  in  hunting,  in  the  case  of  guilt 
being  real.  But  the  most  solemn  oath  of  all  is  to 
exclaim,  in  drinking  some  of  the  blood  of  a  dog, 
killed  expressly  by  the  elders  and  burnt  or  thrown 
away,  '  If  I  die,  may  I  perisrj,  decay,  or  burn 
away  like  this  dog.' l  Very  similar  is  the  oath  in  Su- 
matra, where,  a  beast  having  been  slain,  the  swearer 
says,  '  If  I  break  my  oath,  may  I  be  slaughtered  as 
this  beast,  and  swallowed  as  this  heart  I  now  consume.'2 
The  most  solemn  oath  of  the  Bedouins,  that  of  the  cross- 
lines,  is  also  characterised  by  the  same  belief  which 
appears  in  the  case  of  the  slain  beast  affecting  with 
sympathetic  decay  anyone  guilty  of  perjury.  If  a 
Bedouin  cannot  convict  a  man  he  suspects  of  theft  it 

1  Klemm,  iii.  68.     *  Wuttke,  Geschichte  des  ffeidenthums,  p.  103. 


1 84  SAVAGE  PENAL   LAWS. 

is  usual  for  him  to  take  the  suspected  before  a  sheikh 
or  kady,  and  there  to  call  upon  him  to  swear  any  oath 
he  may  demand.  If  the  defendant  agrees,  he  is  led 
to  a  certain  distance  from  the  camp,  '  because  the 
magical  nature  of  the  oath  might  prove  pernicious  to 
the  general  body  of  Arabs  were  it  to  take  place  in 
their  vicinity.'  Then  the  plaintiff  draws  with  his 
sekin,  or  crooked  knife,  a  large  circle  in  the  sand  with 
many  cross-lines  inside  it,  places  his  right  foot  inside 
it,  causes  the  defendant  to  do  the  same,  and  makes 
him  say  after  himself,  '  By  God,  and  in  God,  and 
through  God,  I  swear  I  did  not  take  the  thing,  nor  is 
it  in  my  possession.'  To  make  the  oath  still  more 
solemn,  the  accused  often  puts  also  in  the  circle  an 
ant  and  a  bit  of  camel's  skin,  the  one  expressive  of  a 
hope  that  he  may  never  be  destitute  of  camel's  milk, 
the  other  of  a  hope  that  he  may  never  lack  the  winter 
substance  of  an  ant.1 

Firm,  however,  as  is  the  savage  belief  that  the 
consequences  of  perjury  are  death  or  disease,  a  belief 
which  shows  itself  not  unfrequently  in  actually  in- 
ferring the  fact  of  perjury  from  the  fact  of  death, 
escape  from  the  obligation  of  an  oath  is  not  unknown 
among  savages.  On  the  Guinea  Coast  recourse  was 
had  to  the  common  expedient  of  priestly  absolution, 
so  that  when  a  man  took  a  draught-oath,  imprecating 
death  on  himself  if  he  failed  in  his  promise,  the  priests 

1  Burckhardt,  Notes  on  the  Bedouins,  p.  73. 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  185 

were  sometimes  compelled  to  take  an  oath  too,  to  the 
effect  that  they  would  not  employ  their  absolving 
powers  to  release  him.  In  Abyssinia  a  simpler  process 
seems  to  be  in  vogue ;  for  the  king,  on  one  occasion 
having  sworn  by  a  cross,  thus  addressed  his  servants  : 
'  You  see  the  oath  I  have  taken  ;  I  scrape  it  clean 
away  from  my  tongue  that  made  it'  Thereupon  he 
scraped  his  tongue  and  spat  away  his  oath,  thus  validly 
releasing  himself  from  it.1 

It  does  not  appear  that  savages  refine  on  their 
motives  for  punishment,  the  sum  of  their  political 
philosophy  in  this  respect  being  rather  to  inflict 
penalties  that  accord  with  their  ideas  of  retribution 
deserved  for  each  case  or  crime,  than  to  deter  other 
criminals  by  warning  examples.  The  statement  that 
New  Zealanders  beat  thieves  to  death,  and  then  hung 
them  on  a  cross  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  as  a  warning 
example,  conflicts  with  another  account  which  says 
that  thieves  were  punished  by  banishment.2  But, 
subject  to  the  influence  of  collateral  circumstances, 
savage  penal  laws  appear  to  be  as  fixed,  regular,  and 
well-known,  as  inflexibly  bound  by  precedent,  as  often 
improved  by  the  intelligence  of  individual  chiefs,  as 
penal  laws  are  in  more  advanced  societies.  The  case 
of  an  Ashantee  king,  who,  limiting  the  number  of  lives 
to  be  sacrificed  at  his  mother's  funeral,  resisted  all 
importunities  and  appeals  to  precedent  for  a  greater 

1  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethttology\  ii.  98.     3  Klemm,  iv.  334 


186  SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS. 

number,  is  not  without  parallel  in  reforms  of  law. 
Thus  we  may  read  of  one  Caffre  chief  who  abolished  in 
his  tribe  the  fine  payable  for  the  crime  of  approaching 
a  chief's  krall  with  the  head  covered  by  a  blanket ; 
whilst  another  chief  made  the  homicide  of  a  man  taken 
in  adultery  a  capital  offence,  thus  transferring  the 
punishment  for  the  crime  from  the  individual  to  the 
tribe.1 

In  legal  customs  analogous  to  those  of  the  savage 
or  rather  semi-civilized  world,  the  legal  institutions  of 
civilized  countries,  their  methods  of  procedure,  of 
extorting  truth,  of  punishing  crimes,  seem  to  have 
their  root  and  explanation.  For  this  reason  the  same 
interest  attaches  to  the  legal  institutions  of  modern 
savages  as  attaches  to  the  laws  of  the  ancient 
Germanic  tribes  or  to  the  ordinances  of  Menu,  the  in- 
terest, that  is,  of  descent  or  relationship.  The  oath, 
for  instance,  of  our  law  courts  presupposes  in  the 
past,  if  not  in  the  present,  precisely  the  same  state 
of  thought  as  the  oath  customary  in  Samoa ;  and 
the  same  virtue  inherent  in  touching  and  kissing  the 
Bible  in  England,  or  the  cross  in  Russia,  leads  the 
Tunguse  Lapp  to  touch  and  then  kiss  the  cannon, 
gun,  or  sword,  by  which  he  swears  allegiance  to 
the  Russian  crown.2  The  Highlander  of  olden  time, 
kissing  his  dirk,  to  invoke  death  by  it  if  he  lied,  is 
a  similar  instance  of  the  survival  of  the  primitive 

1  Maclean,  pp.  124,  no.  2  Klemm,  iii.  69. 


SAVAGE  PENAL  LAWS.  187 

conception,  that  physical  contact  with  a  thing  creates 
a  spiritual  dependence  upon  it.  The  ordeal,  so  lately 
the  judicial  test  of  witchcraft,  still  retains  a  foothold 
of  faith  among  our  country  people,  as  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  not  longer  ago  than  1863  an  octogenarian 
died  in  consequence  of  having  been  '  swum '  as  a 
wizard  at  Little  Hedingham,  in  Essex.  And,  lastly, 
the  English  law  that  no  person  could  inherit  an  estate 
from  anyone  convicted  of  treason,  or  from  a  suicide, 
shows  how  naturally  the  savage  law  of  collective 
responsibility,  in  reality  so  unjust,  may  survive  into 
times  of  civilisation,  whilst  the  ignominy  still  attached 
to  the  blood-relations  of  a  criminal  shows  with  what 
difficulty  the  feeling  is  eradicated. 


i88 


VII. 
EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

AMID  the  wonderful  uniformity  which  pervades  the 
thoughts  and  customs  of  the  world  some  strange  rever- 
sals here  and  there  occur,  as  where  white  is  the  colour 
significative  of  grief,  or  where  to  turn  one's  back  on  a 
person  is  a  sign  of  reverence.  But  perhaps  few  such 
reversals  are  more  curious  than  the  custom  of  the 
Garos,  in  India,  who  consider  any  infringement  of  the 
rule  that  all  proposals  of  marriage  must  come  from 
the  female  side  as  an  insult  to  the  mahdri  to  which 
the  lady  belongs,  only  to  be  atoned  for  by  liberal  dona- 
tions of  beer  and  pigs  from  the  man's  mahdri  to  that  of 
the  '  proposee.'  More  curious,  however,  than  even  this 
is  their  marriage  ceremony  ;  at  which,  after  the  bride 
has  been  bathed  in  the  nearest  stream,  the  wedding 
party  proceed  to  the  house  of  the  bridegroom,  '  wJio 
pretends  to  be  unwilling  and  runs  away,  but  is  caught 
and  subjected  to  a  similar  ablution,  and  then  taken,  in 
spite  of  the  resistance  and  counterfeited  grief  and  lamen- 
tations of  his  parents,  to  the  bride's  house' l 

1  Dalton,  Descriptive  Ethnology  of  Bengal,  p.  64. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  189 

An  exactly  analogous  custom  as  regards  the  bride's 
behaviour  at  her  wedding  is  sufficiently  well  known  ; 
and  if  it  has  been  correctly  interpreted  as  the  survival, 
in  form  and  symbol,  of  a  system  of  capturing  wives 
from  a  neighbouring  tribe,  there  must  have  been  a 
time  when  among  the  Garos  a  husband  could  only 
have  been  obtained  in  a  similar  way.  The  improba- 
bility of  this  suggests  the  possibility  of  some  other 
explanation  underlying  the  reluctance,  feigned  or  real, 
with  which  it  is  common  in  savage  life  for  a  girl  to 
enter  upon  the  paths  of  matrimony,  and  for  the  show 
of  resistance  with  which  her  friends  oppose  her  depar- 
ture with  her  husband. 

In  many  instances  this  peculiar  feature  of  primitive 
life  appears  as  simply  the  outcome  of  feelings  and 
affections  which  are  the  same,  howsoever  different  in 
expression,  in  savage  as  in  civilised  lands.  The  con- 
viction that  there  is  an  utter  absence  of  anything  like 
love  between  children  and  their  parents,  or  between 
men  and  women,  in  the  ruder  social  communities,  is 
so  strong  and  has  been  so  often  dwelt  upon,  that  in 
speculations  on  this  subject  there  is  a  tendency  and 
danger  of  altogether  overlooking  the  influence  of 
natural  affection  in  the  formation  of  customs.  It 
is  needful,  therefore,  to  preface  the  present  chap- 
ter with  a  brief  reference  to  the  express  statements 
of  missionaries  and  travellers  ;  for  if  it  can  be  shown 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  affection  between 


igo  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

parents  and  children,  the  inference  is  fair  that  neither 
would  parents  part  with  their  children  nor  children 
leave  their  parents  without  mutual  regret,  when  the 
children  are  married. 

Of  the  Fijians,  so  famous  for  their  cannibalism 
and  their  parenticide,  it  is  declared  to  be  '  truly  touch- 
ing to  see  how  parents  are  attached  to  their  children 
and  children  to  their  parents.' l  Among  the  Tongans, 
who  would  sacrifice  their  children  cruelly  for  the 
recovery  of  the  sick,  children  were  '  taken  the  utmost 
care  of.' 2  The  New  Zealanders  were  not  guiltless 
of  infanticide,  yet  '  some  of  them,  and  especially 
the  fathers,  seemed  fond  of  their  children.'3  The 
Papuans  of  New  Guinea  manifested  '  respect  for  the 
aged,  love  for  their  children,  and  fidelity  to  their  wives.'4 
In  Africa,  Mungo  Park  says  of  the  Mandigoes  :  '  The 
maternal  affection  is  everywhere  conspicuous  among 
them,  and  creates  a  corresponding  return  of  tenderness 
in  the  child.' 5  Among  the  Eastern  Ethiopians  were 
women  who  lived  a  wild  life  in  the  woods  ;  yet  the 
testimony  is  the  same  :  '  However  barbarous  these 
people  be  by  nature,  they  yet  are  not  devoid  of  feel- 
ing for  their  children  ;  these  they  rear  with  nicest  care, 
and  for  their  provision  strive  to  amass  what  property 
they  can.' 6  Yoruba  '  children  are  much  beloved  by 

1  Seemann,  Mission  to  Viti,  p.  192.  2  Mariner,  ii.  302. 

3  Ellis,  iii.  349.  4  Earle,  Indian  Archipelago,  p.  81. 

4  Pinkerton,  xvi.  872.  «  Ibid.,  p.  697. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  191 

both  parents.' l  Love  for  their  children  unites  the 
greater  number  of  the  Bushmen  for  their  whole  lives.2 
In  North  America  the  Thlinkeet  Indians  '  treat  their 
wives  and  children  with  much  affection  and  kindness.' 3 
Among  the  Greenlanders,  says  Cranz,  '  the  bonds  of 
filial  and  parental  love  seem  stronger  than  amongst 
any  other  nations.'  Their  fondness  for  their  children 
is  great ;  parents  seldom  let  them  out  .of  their  sight, 
and  mothers  often  throw  themselves  in  the  water  to 
save  a  child  from  drowning.  In  return  ingratitude  to- 
wards their  aged  parents  is  '  scarcely  ever  exemplified 
among  them.' 4  Of  the  natives  of  Australia,  Sir  G. 
Grey  says  that  they  '  are  always  ardently  attached  to 
their  children,'  and  similar  testimony  has  been  borne 
to  the  parental  affection  even  of  the  Tasmanians.5 

But,  lest  it  should  be  thought  that  these  evidences 
are  drawn  from  the  higher  savagery,  let  appeal  be 
made  to  the  case  of  savages  who  confessedly  belong 
to  the  lowest  known  types  of  mankind,  the  Andaman 
Islanders,  the  Veddahs,  and  the  Fuejians. 

In  reference  to  the  first  it  is  said  that  'the  parents  are 
fond  of  their  children,  and  the  affection  is  reciprocal.' 6 
The  Veddahs  are  not  only  '  kind  and  constant  to  their 

1  Bowen,  Central  Africa,  p.  305.  *  Lichtenstein,  ii.  48. 

*  Portlock's  Voyage,  p.  260,  in  Bancroft,  i.  no. 

4  Cranz,  i.  149,  150,  174,  218. 

5  Travels  in  Australia,  ii.   355  ;  and  Bonwick,   Daily  Life  of  the 
Tasmanians,  pp.  10,  78-98. 

"  Transactions  of  Ethnological  Society,  Prof.  Owen,  ii.  36. 


192  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

wives/  but '  fond  of  their  children ;' l  whilst  Mr.  Parker 
Snow  saw  among  the  Fuejians  '  many  instances  of 
warm  love  and  affection  for  their  children  ; ' 2  so  that 
if  in  the  sequel  we  find  daughters  at  their  marriage 
displaying  a  real  or  simulated  repugnance  to  their 
fate,  the  fact  need  not  appear  to  us  of  such  extreme 
mystery  as  it  otherwise  might,  nor  as  one  in  which 
natural  affection  can  play  no  part. 

A  recent  Italian  writer  on  the  primitive  domestic 
state  says  that  '  la  passione  viva  d'amore  che  suole 
attribuirsi  ai  popoli  primitivi  .  .  .  e  una  pura  illu- 
sione.'3  But  happily  for  the  primitive  populations,  their 
lot  is  far  from  being  really  thus  unbrightened  by  love, 
though  with  them,  as  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  it  is 
a  frequent  cause  of  wars  and  quarrels,  interfering  es- 
pecially with  the  savage  custom  of  infant  betrothal, 
and  leading  to  elopements  in  defeat  of  parental  con- 
tracts. It  is  peculiar  to  neither  sex.  A  Tahitian  girl, 
love-stricken,  but  not  encouraged,  led  her  friends,  by 
her  threats  of  suicide,  to  persuade  the  object  of  her 
affections  to  make  her  his  wife.4  The  Tongans  had  a 
pretty  legend  of  a  young  chief,  who,  having  fallen  in 
love  with  a  maiden  already  betrothed  to  a  superior, 
saved  her,  when  she  was  condemned  to  be  killed  with 
the  other  relations  of  a  rebel,  by  hiding  her  in  a  cavern 
he  had  found,  whence  they  finally  effected  their  joint 

1  Transactions  of  Ethnological  Society,  ii.  291.  *  Ibid.,  \.  264. 

»  Nuova  Antologia,  Jan.  1876.  4  Ellis,  i.  268. 


EARLY   WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  193 

escape  to  Fiji.1  New  Zealand  mythology  abounds  in 
love-tales.  There  is  the  tale  of  Hinemoa  and  Tuta- 
nekai,  which  begins  with  stolen  glances,  and  ends  in 
a  nocturnal  swim  on  the  part  of  Hinemoa  to  the 
island,  whither  the  music  of  her  lover  guided  her. 
There  is  the  tale  also  of  Takaranji  and  Raumahora — 
of  Takaranji,  who,  though  besieging  her  father  in  his 
fortress,  consented  to  present  both  of  them  with  water 
in  their  distress.  '  And  Takaranji  gazed  eagerly  at 
the  young  girl,  and  she  too  looked  eagerly  at  Takaranji 
.  .  .  and  as  the  warriors  of  the  army  of  Takaranji 
looked  on,  lo,  he  had  climbed  up  and  was  sitting  at 
the  young  maiden's  side  ;  and  they  said  among  them- 
selves, "  O  comrades,  our  lord  Takaranji  loves  war, 
but  one  would  think  he  likes  Raumahora  almost  as 
well.' " 2 

Nor  would  it  be  fair  to  argue,  because  in  most 
savage  tribes  the  hard  work  of  life  devolves  upon  the 
women,  that  therefore  there  is  an  entire  absence  of 
affection  in  savage  households,  whether  polygamous 
or  otherwise,  during  their  continuance.  It  is  scarcely  a 
hundred  years  ago  that  in  Caithness  '  the  hard  work 
was  chiefly  done,  and  the  burdens  borne,  by  the  women ; 
and  if  a  cottier  lost  a  horse,  it  was  not  unusual  for  him 

1  Mariner,  i.  271—7- 

*  These  stories  are  worth  reading  at  length  in  Grey's  Polynesian 
Mythology,  pp.  233-246,  296-301.  See  also  pp.  246-273,  301-313.  For 
a  good  Zulu  love-story  see  Leslie's  Among  the  Zulus,  pp.  275-284  ;  and, 
for  a  Tasmanian  love-legend,  Bonwick,  p.  34. 

O 


194  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

to  marry  a  wife  as  the  cheapest  substitute.' l  The 
Fuejians,  whose  condition  Captain  Weddell  felt  com- 
pelled to  describe  as  that  of  the  lowest  of  mankind, 
and  whose  women  did  all  the  work,  gathering  the  shell- 
fish, managing  the  canoes,  and  building  the  wigwams, 
are  said  to  have  shown  '  a  good  deal  of  affection  for 
their  wives,'  and  care  for  their  offspring.2  Among  the 
Fijians,  who  made  their  women  carry  all  the  heavy 
loads  and  do  all  the  field-work,  and  who  remonstrated 
with  the  Tongans  for  their  more  humane  treatment 
of  them,  not  only  have  widows  been  known  to  kill 
themselves  if  their  relatives  refused  to  do  the  duty 
which  custom  laid  upon  them — namely,  of  killing 
them  at  their  husbands'  burial — but  '  even  widowers, 
in  the  depth  of  their  grief,  have  frequently  terminated 
their  existence  when  deprived  of  a  dearly  beloved 
wife.'  3  In  India,  Abor  husbands  treated  their  wives 
with  a  consideration  that  appeared  '  singular  in  so  rude 
a  race.' 4  In  America  the  lot  of  a  woman  was  generally 
one  of  hardship  ;  yet,  says  Schoolcraft,  '  the  gentler 
affections  have  a  much  more  extensive  and  powerful 
exercise  among  the  Indians  than  is  generally  be- 
lieved.' 6  Carib  husbands  are  said  to  have  had  much 
love  for  their  wives,  like  as  it  was  to  a  straw  fire, 

1  Smiles,  Self-help,  p.  325  ;  Pennant's  Tour,  in  Pinkerton,  iii.  89  : 
Their  tender  sex  are  their  only  animals  of  burden.' 

2  Weddell,  Voyage  to  South  Pole,  1825,  p.  156. 

*  Seemann,  p.  192.  *  Dalton,  Bengal,  p.  28. 

*  Indian  Tribes,   v.  131-2. 


EARLY   WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  195 

except  with  respect  to  the  first  wife  they  married.1 
Of  the  Thlinkeet  Indians,  characterised  by  great 
cruelty  to  prisoners  and  other  marks  of  much  barbarity, 
it  is  said  that  '  there  are  few  savage  nations  in  which 
the  women  have  greater  influence  or  command  greater 
respect.' 2  '  It  is  one  of  the  fine  traits,'  says  Schwein- 
furth  of  the  cannibal  Niam-Niam,  '  that  they  display 
an  affection  for  their  wives  which  is  unparalleled 
among  natives  of  so  low  a  grade  ...  a  husband  will 
spare  no  sacrifice  to  redeem  an  imprisoned  wife.' 3 
Though  against  this  evidence  there  is  much  of  a  darker 
character  to  be  set,  the  above  instances  will  suffice  to 
demonstrate  the  real  existence,  the  real  operation, 
among  some  of  the  rudest  representatives  of  our  spe- 
cies, of  ordinary  feelings  of  love  and  affection.  As  in 
geology  so  in  ethnology  it  holds  true,  that  the  action  of 
known  existing  causes  is  sufficient  to  account  for  much 
that  is  obscure  in  the  past  and  for  all  that  is  strange  in 
the  present. 

Having  so  far  cleared  the  ground  as  to  be  justified 
in  postulating  the  existence  of  ordinary  feelings  of 
affection  between  parents  and  children,  and  between 
men  and  women,  as  verce  causa,  or  real  forces,  even 
in  the  lowest  known  savage  life,  let  us  pass  to  the  in- 
ference that  at  no  time  are  those  feelings  more  likely 
to  be  called  into  play  than  at  a  time  when  the  daughter 

1  Rochefort,  Les  lies  Antilles,  p.  544. 

*  Bancroft,  i.  no.  *  Heart  of  Africa,  i.  472;  ii.  28. 

O  2 


196  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

of  a  family  is  about  to  leave  her  parents,  and  perhaps 
her  clan,  to  live  henceforth  with  a  man  whom  she  may 
not  even  know,  or  knows  only  to  dislike.1  In  China, 
where  on  the  wedding-day  the  bride  is  locked  up  in  a 
sedan-chair,  and  the  key  and  chair  consigned  to  the 
bridegroom,  who  may  not  see  her  before  that  day,  a 
traveller  once  witnessed  a  separation  between  the 
bride  and  her  family.  '  All  the  family  appeared  much 
affected,  particularly  the  women,  who  sobbed  aloud  ; 
the  father  shed  tears,  and  the  daughter  was  with 
difficulty  torn  from  the  embraces  of  her  parents  and 
placed  in  the  sedan-chair.' 2  It  seems  more  likely  in 
this  case  that  the  reluctance  and  resistance  were  real, 
than  that  they  were  merely  the  symbols,  convention- 
ally observed,  of  a  system  of  wife-capture.  But  in 
many  instances  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  a  real 
from  a  feigned  grief.  A  witness  of  the  marriage  ce- 
remonies among  the  Tartars,  who  describes  the  bride 
and  her  girl  friends  as  raising  piteous  lamentations 
beforehand,  says  that  the  poor  girl  either  was  or 
appeared  to  be  a  most  unwilling  victim.3 

Jenkinson,  one  of  the  earliest  English  travellers  in 
Russia,  noticed  the  same  custom  there,  but  thought 
it  affectation.  On  the  day  of  marriage  the  bride 

1  The  best  illustration  of  this  side  of  savage  life,  of  the   sorrow  felt 
by  a  bride  on  leaving  her  home,  occurs  in  the  Finnish  Kalewala,  in 
Schiefher's  German  translation,  pp.  126-132,  147-150. 
2  Dobell,  Travels  in  Kamtschatka,  &c. ,  ii.  293. 
*  Holderness,  Journey  from  Riga,  p.  233. 


EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  197 

would  in  nowise  consent  to  leave  the  house  to  go  to 
church,  but  would  resist,  strive,  and  weep,  only  suffer- 
ing herself  to  be  led  there  by  force,  with  her  face 
covered,  to  hide  her  simulated  grief,  and  making  a 
great  noise,  as  though  she  were  sobbing  and  weep- 
ing, all  the  way  to  the  scene  of  her  wedding.1  But  a 
modern  French  writer  ascribes  some  reality  to  the 
custom,  mentioning  that  traditional  songs  are  still 
sung  in  which  the  young  bride  addresses  words  of 
regret  and  sorrow  to  her  parents  in  the  midst  of 
her  preparations  for  the  nuptial  feast.2  Before  this 
last  ceremony  she  is  accustomed  to  go  the  round 
of  her  village,  with  a  woman  who  calls  for  the  sym- 
pathy of  her  hearers  for  the  young  girl  whose  care- 
free existence  is  about  to  be  exchanged  for  the 
troubles  and  anxieties  of  married  life.3 

Yet,  if  in  China  and  Russia,  much  more  among 
uncivilized  tribes,  would  the  life  in  prospect  for  a 
bride,  unless  perchance  her  wishes  coincided  with  her 
parents'  interest,  cause  her  to  leave  the  home  of  her 
youth  with  something  more  than  those  '  light  regrets  * 


1  Hakluyt,  i.  360 ;  Pierson,  Russlands  Vergangenheit,  pp.  202,  208. 

2  Marmier,  Sur  la  Russie,  ii.  154.      '  Au  moment  de  se  mettre  en 
marche  pour  1'eglise,  elle  soupire,  pleure,  refuse  de  sortir.     Tous  ses 
parents  essayent  de  la  consoler, '  &c. 

P.  149  :  '  Rien  ne  donne  une  idee  plus  touchante  du  caractere  du 
peuple  russe  que  ces  paroles  de  regret  et  de  douleur  que  la  jeune  fiancee 
adresse  i  ses  parents  au  milieu  des  joyeux  preparatifs  de  la  fete  nuptiale. ' 

1  Marmier,  i.  127,  229. 


198  EARLY   WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

which  cause  tears  to  commingle  with  smiles  even 
in  England.  Greenland  girls,  says  Cranz,  do  nothing 
till  they  are  fourteen  but  sing,  dance,  and  romp  about ; 
but  a  life  of  slavery  is  in  store  for  them  as  soon  as 
they  are  fit  for  it;  'while  they  remain  with  their 
parents  they  are  well  off,  but  from  twenty  years  of 
age  till  death  their  life  is  one  series  of  anxieties, 
wretchedness,  and  toil.' 1  Marriage  is  a  fate  they 
would  not  seek,  but  cannot  avoid.  Should  they, 
however,  not  oppose  it,  they  must  enter  upon  it  with 
reluctance,  not  with  alacrity. 

It  is  worth  noticing  the  reason  Cranz  gives  for 
this  reluctance,  because,  in  so  far  as  modern  savages 
may  be  taken  to  represent  primitive  life,  it  proves 
the  existence,  in  that  condition,  of  notions,  howsoever 
they  may  have  arisen,  which  are  exactly  analogous  to 
those  we  connote  by  the  word  '  modesty.'  When  the 
two  old  women,  commissioned  to  negotiate  with  a  girl's 
parents  on  behalf  of  a  young  man,  first  give  a  hint  of 
their  purpose  by  praise  of  him  and  of  his  family,  'the 
damsel  directly  falls  into  the  greatest  apparent  con- 
sternation and  runs  out  of  doors,  tearing  her  bunch  of 
hair  ;  for  single  women  always  affect  the  utmost  bash- 
fulness  and  aversion  to  any  proposal  of  marriage,  lest 
they  should  lose  their  reputation  for  modesty,  though 
their  destined  husbands  be  previously  well  assured 
of  their  acquiescence.' 2  Not,  indeed,  that  the  reluc- 

1  Cranz,  i.  151.  *  Ibid.,  i.  146. 


EARLY   WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  199 

tance  is  always  feigned,  for  sometimes  the  name  of  her 
proposed  husband  causes  her  to  swoon,  to  elope  to  a 
desert  place,  or  to  effectually  free  herself  from  further 
addresses,  by  cutting  off  her  hair  in  token  of  grief. 
Should,  however,  her  parents  consent  to  the  match, 
the  usual  course  is  for  the  old  women  to  go  in  search 
of  her,  '  and  drag  her  forcibly  into  the  suitor's  house, 
where  she  sits  for  several  days  quite  disconsolate, 
with  dishevelled  hair,  and  refuses  nourishment. 
When  friendly  exhortations  are  unavailing  she  is 
compelled  by  force,  and  even  blows,  to  receive  her 
husband.' 

In  Greenland,  then,  as  in  China,  the  form  of 
capture  resolves  itself  either  into  a  most  unequivocal 
reluctance  to  leave  home  or  to  a  reluctance  so  to  do 
feigned  from  feelings  of  bashfulness.  Nor  about  this 
bashfulness  does  it  appear  that  Cranz  was  in  error,  for 
Egede  agrees  substantially  with  him,  telling  how  the 
bridegroom,  when  he  has  obtained  her  parents'  and 
relations'  consent,  sends  some  old  women  to  carry 
away  the  bride  by  force ;  '  for  though  she  ever  so  much 
approves  of  the  match,  yet  out  of  'modesty  she  must 
make  as  if  it  went  against  the  grain,  and  as  if  she  were 
much  ruffled  at  it ;  else  she  will  be  blamed  and  get  an 
ill  name'  When  brought  to  his  hut,  therefore,  she  sits 
in  a  corner  with  dishevelled  hair,  'covering  her  face, 
being  bashful  and  ashamed.'  For  'a  new-married 
woman  is  ashamed  of  having  changed  her  condition  for 


200  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

a  married  state]'1  and  this  feeling  occurs  again  plainly 
in  South-Eastern  Russia,  where,  on  the  eve  of  mar- 
riage, the  bride  goes  round  the  village,  throwing  her- 
self on  her  knees  before  the  head  of  each  house  and 
begging  his  pardon? 

This  last  statement  of  Egede  is  most  important, 
since  it  proves  the  existence  of  feelings  which  seem 
really  to  contain  the  keynote  of  the  symbol  of  cap- 
ture, however  slight  the  reasons  for  suspecting  their 
presence  in  particular  cases.  The  sentiment  prevalent 
in  Greenland  has  also  been  noticed  among  the  Tar- 
tars, for  an  authentic  witness  writes,  'that  if  one  tells 
a  Tartar  girl  that  it  is  said  she  is  about  to  be  married, 
she  runs  immediately  out  of  the  room  and  will  never 
speak  to  a  stranger  on  that  subject.' 3  It  has  been 
justly  observed  that  it  is  unlikely  feminine  delicacy 
should  diminish  with  civilization.  But  the  principle 
impuris  omnia  impura  will  meet  the  difficulty.  The 
Aleutian  Islander,  says  a  Russian  writer,  '  knows  no- 
thing of  what  civilized  nations  call  modesty.  He  has 
his  own  ideas  of  what  is  modest  and  proper,  while  we 
should  consider  them  foolish.' 4  For,  addicted  though 
he  is  to  the  worst  vices  of  the  Northern  nations,  he  will 
yet  blush  to  address  his  wife  or  ask  her  for  anything 
in  the  presence  of  strangers,  and  will  be  bashful  if 

1  Egede,  pp.  143-145.  2  Chambers,  Book  of  Days,  ii.  721. 

*  Holderness,  p.  234.  4  Dall,  Alaska,  pp.  396,  399. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  201 

he  be  caught  doing  anything  unusual,  as,  for  in- 
stance, buying  or  selling  directly  for  himself  without 
the  agency  of  an  intermediary. 

Characteristic  as  it  is  of  savages  to  express  all  the 
feelings  they  share  with  us  with  an  energy  intensified 
a  hundredfold,  as  is  shown  abundantly  in  our  dif- 
ferent manner  of  grieving  for  the  dead,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising if  we  find  their  feelings  of  the  kind  in  question 
display  themselves  in  extraordinary  and  often  ludic- 
rous rules  of  social  intercourse.  The  same  rule,  that  an 
Aleutian  husband  and  wife  might  not  be  seen  speaking 
together,  led  Kolbe  to  think  that  no  such  thing  as  affec- 
tion existed  among  the  Hottentots.  But  this  was 
simply  for  the  same  reason  that  prohibited  the  Hotten- 
tot wife  from  ever  setting  foot  in  her  husband's  apart- 
ment in  the  hut,  or  the  latter  from  ever  entering  hers 
except  by  stealth.1  Among  the  Yorubas  a  woman 
betrothed  by  her  parents  is  so  far  a  wife  that  pre- 
matrimonial  unfaithfulness  is  accounted  adultery ; 
'  yet  conventional  modesty  forbids  her  to  speak  to  her 
husband,  or  even  to  see  him,  if  it  can  be  avoided.'2  A 
minority  of  the  Afghan  tribes  are  careful  to  keep  up  a 
similar  reserve  between  the  time  of  betrothal  and  mar- 
riage, so  that,  as  among  the  warlike  Eusofyzes,  no  man 
can  see  his  wife  till  the  completion  of  the  marriage 

1  Kolbe,  in  Medley's  translation,  i.  161. 

2  Bowen,  Central  Africa,  p.  303. 


202  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

ceremony.1  Among  the  Mongols  not  only  may  bride 
and  bridegroom  not  see  each  other  within  the  same 
period,  but  the  bride  is  not  allowed  to  see  his  parents.2 
In  Russia  it  was  once  a  disgrace  for  a  young  man  to 
propose  directly  to  a  lady,  and  between  the  day  of 
settling  the  dowry  with  her  parents  and  the  day  of 
marriage  he  was  strictly  forbidden  the  house  of  his 
betrothed.3  But  many  tribes  continue  such  reserve 
even  after  mariage.  A  Circassian  bridegroom  must 
not  see  his  wife  or  live  with  her  without  the  greatest 
mystery  :  'this  reserve  continues  during  life.  A  Cir- 
cassian will  sometimes  permit  a  stranger  to  see  his 
wife,  but  he  must  not  accompany  him.' 4  In  parts  of 
Fiji  which  are  still  unmodified  by  Christian  teaching 
it  is  '  quite  contrary  to  ideas  of  delicacy  that  a  man  ever 
remains  under  the  same  roof  with  his  wife  or  wives  at 
night.'  If  they  wish  to  meet,  they  must  appoint  a 
secret  rendezvous.5  And  a  similar  law  of  social  de- 
corum prevails,  or  prevailed,  among  the  Spartans, 
Lycians,  Turcomans,  and  some  tribes  of  America,6 
though  the  processes  of  thought  which  led  to  such  cus- 
toms lie  lost,  perhaps  hopelessly,  behind  the  darkness 
of  a  thousand  ages. 

1  Elphinstone,  Caubul,  i.  240. 

2  Latham,  Descriptive  Ethnology,  i.  313. 

*  Herberstein,  i.  92. 

4  Pinkerton,  Modern  Geography,  ii.  524. 

5  Seemann,  Mission  to  Fiji,  p.  190. 

•  Si  J.  Lubbock,  Origin  of  Civilization,  pp.  75-76. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  203 

The  custom,  again,  of  deserting  a  husband  and 
returning  home  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period,  as 
found  among  the  Votyaks  of  Russia  and  the  Mezeyne 
Arabs,  may  possibly  be  traced  to  feelings  of  the  same 
description,  for  we  read  that  among  the  Hos,  '  after 
remaining  with  her  husband  for  three  days  only,  it  is 
the  correct  thing  for  the  wife  to  run  away  from  him 
and  tell  all  her  friends  that  she  loves  him  not,  and 
will  see  him  no  more  ; '  it  is  also  correct  for  the  hus- 
band to  manifest  great  anxiety  for  his  loss,  and  dili- 
gently to  seek  his  wife,  and  'when  he  finds  her  he 
carries  her  off  by  main  force'.  l  This  second  show 
of  resistance,  customary  also  among  the  Votyaks, 
seems  difficult  to  explain  as  a  traditional  symbol  of 
a  system  of  capture. 

It  is  possible  that  in  similar  primitive  ideas  origi- 
nated the  curious  restrictions  on  the  intercourse  be- 
tween a  man  and  his  mother-in-law,  or  between  a 
woman  and  her  father-in-law.  On  the  theory  that 
these  are  remnants  of  the  real  anger  shown  by  parents 
when  capture  was  real,  it  is  not  easy  to  account  for 
the  fact  that  in  Fiji  the  restriction  as  to  eating  or 
speaking  together  existed  not  only  between  parents 
and  children-in-law,  or  brothers  and  sisters-in-law,  but 
between  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  same  family,  and 
also  between  first  cousins.2  In  Suffolk  '  it  is  (or  was) 
very  remarkable  that  neither  father  nor  mother  of 

1  Dalton,  Bengal,  p.  193.  *  Williams,  Fiji,  p.  136. 


204  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

bride  or  bridegroom  come  with  them  to  church '  at  the 
weddings  of  agricultural  labourers  ;  and  it  is  said  that 
at  Russian  weddings  also  the  parents  are  forbidden 
to  be  present,  though  the  priest  sometimes  waives 
the  prohibition  in  favour  of  persons  of  the  higher 
classes.1 

There  is,  therefore,  no  a  priori  inconceivability 
against  the  theory  that  kicking  and  screaming  at 
weddings,  where  they  do  not  arise  from  genuine  re- 
luctance, are  really  a  tribute  to  conventional  propriety  ; 
that,  at  the  marriages  of  the  uncivilized,  just  as  at 
their  burials,  shrieks  and  violence  take  the  place  of 
tears,  and  a  vigorous  struggle  argues  a  modest  de- 
portment. The  evidence  of  quite  independent  eye- 
witnesses confirms  this  interpretation.  The  Thlinkeet 
Indian,  on  his  wedding-day,  goes  to  the  bride's  house 
and  sits  with  his  back  to  her  door.  All  her  relations 
then  '  raise  a  song,  to  allure  the  coy  bride  out  of  the 
corner  where  she  has  been  sitting ; '  after  which  she 
goes  to  sit  by  her  husband's  side  ;  but  '  all  this  time 
she  must  keep  her  head  bowed  down,'  nor  is  she  allowed 
to  take  part  in  the  festivities  of  the  day.2 

Atkinson,  who  was  witness  of  the  first  visit  of  a 
Kirghiz  bridegroom  to  his  wife,  declares  that  the 
latter  could  only  be  persuaded  by  the  pressure  of  her 
female  relations  to  see  him  at  all ;  '  after  a  display  of 

1  Chambers,  Book  of  Days,  ii.  733;  Holman,  Travels,  \.  153. 

2  Dall,  Alaska,  p.  415. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  205 

much  coyness   she  consented,   and  was  led   by  her 
friends  to  his  dwelling.' 1 

In    Kamschatka   the   original   etiquette   was    for 
women  to  cover  their  faces  with  some  kind  of  veil 
when  they  went  out,  and  if  they  met  any  man  on  the 
road  whom  they  could  not  avoid,  to  stand  with  their 
backs  to  him  until  he  had  passed.     They  would  also, 
if  a  stranger  entered  their  huts,  turn  their  face  to  the 
wall  or  else  hide  behind  a  curtain  of  nettles.2     Kam- 
schatka, however,  being  the  last  place  where  one  would 
have  looked  for  such  prudery,  it  is  possible  that  the 
feelings  of  the  Greenlanders  were  also  operative  in 
the  marriage  customs  of  the    Kamschadals.     These 
were  rather  extraordinary,  the  form  of  capture  being 
anything  but  a  mere  symbol  for  an  aspirant  to  matri- 
mony.   Such  an  one,  having  looked  for  a  bride  in  some 
neighbouring  village  (seldom  in  his  own),  would  offer 
his  services  to  the  parent  for  a  fixed  term,  and  after  some 
time  would  ask  for  leave  to  seize  the  daughter  for  his 
bride.  This  obtained,  he  would  seek  to  find  her  alone  or 
ill-attended,  the  marriage  being  complete  on  his  tear- 
ing from  her  some  of  the  coats,  fish-nets,  and  straps 
with  which  from  the  day  of  proposal  she  was  constantly 
enveloped.     This  was  never  an   easy  matter,  for  she 
was  never  left  alone  a  single  instant,  her  mother  and 
a  number  of  old  women  accompanying  her  every- 

1  Trans.  Eth.  Soc.,  i.  98. 

2  Krashenninonikov,  Kamtshatka,  p.  215. 


206  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

where,  sleeping  with  her,  and  never  losing  her  out  of 
sight  upon  any  pretext  whatever.  Any  attempt  to  ex- 
ecute his  task  entailed  upon  the  suitor  such  kicking, 
hair-pulling,  and  face-scratching,  at  the  hands  of  this 
female  body-guard,  that  sometimes  a  year  or  more 
would  elapse  before  he  was  entitled  to  call  himself  a 
husband ;  nay,  there  is  record  of  one  pertinacious 
bachelor  who  found  himself  at  the  end  of  seven  years, 
in  consequence  of  such  treatment,  not  a  husband, 
but  a  cripple.  If  he  were  disheartened  by  repeated 
failures  he  incurred  great  disgrace  and  lost  all  claim 
to  the  alliance  ;  and  if  the  bride  continued  obdurate 
from  real  dislike,  he  was  ultimately  expelled  from  the 
village.1  But,  however  well-disposed  towards  him 
she  might  be,  she  had  always  to  simulate  refusal  as  a 
point  of  honour,  and  proof  was  always  required  '  that 
she  was  taken  by  surprise  and  made  fruitless  efforts 
to  defend  herself.' 2 

The  Bushmen,  again,  generally  betroth  their 
daughters  as  children  without  consulting  them  ;  but 
should  a  girl  grow  up  unbetrothed  her  consent  to  be 
married  is  as  necessary  as  that  of  her  parents  to  her 

1  '  Beschwerte  sich  aber  die  Braut,  dass  sie  den  Brautigam  durchaus 
nicht  haben  noch  sich  von  ihm  erobern  lassen  wollte,  so  musste  er  aus 
dem  Ostrog  fort.' — Steller,  Kamtschatka,  p.  345. 

2  Lesseps,  Travels  in  Kamtschatka  (translated),  ii.  93.    The  account 
here  given  of  the  Kamschadal  marriage  customs  is  from  Krashennino- 
nikov  (translated  by  Grieve),  Travels  in  Kamtshatka,  pp.  212-214  (1764) ; 
Steller,  pp.  343-349  (1774);  Lesseps.  ii.  93  (1790).     They  differ  in 
some  minor  details. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  207 

lover's  suit,  'and  on  this  occasion  his  attentions  are 
received  with  an  affectation  of  great  alarm  and  dis- 
inclination on  her  part' l 

If,  then,  Greenlanders,  Kamschadals,  Thlinkeet 
Indians,  and  even  Bushmen,  carry  their  notions  of 
propriety  to  the  extent  asserted  by  eye-witnesses,  it 
is  scarcely  surprising  to  find  very  similar  rules  of 
etiquette  among  the  more  advanced  Zulus  of  Africa 
or  Bedouins  of  Arabia  in  their  wedding  ceremonials  ; 
especially  when  we  are  told  that  in  some  parts  Be- 
douin women  sit  down  and  turn  their  backs  to  any 
man  they  cannot  avoid  on  the  road,  and  refuse  to 
take  anything  from  the  hands  of  a  stranger.2  '  The 
principal  idea  of  a  Kaffir  wedding  seems  to  be  to 
show  the  great  unwillingness  of  the  girl  to  be  trans- 
formed into  a  wife,'  for  which  reason  a  Zulu  wife 
simulates  several  attempts  to  escape.3  Both  the 
Arabs  of  Sinai  and  the  Aenezes  enact  the  form  of 
capture  to  the  greatest  perfection  ;  among  the  latter 
'  the  bashful  girl '  runs  from  the  tent  of  one  friend 
to  another  till  she  is  caught  at  last,  whilst  among  the 
former  she  acquires  permanent  repute  in  proportion 
to  her  struggles  of  resistance.  And  if  a  Sinai  Arab 
marries  a  bride  belonging  to  a  distant  tribe,  she  is 
placed  on  a  camel  and  led  to  her  husband's  camp 
escorted  by  women  :  during  which  procession  '  decency 

1  Burchell,  ii.  56.         2  Burckhardt,  Notes  on  the  Bedouins,  p.  200. 
»  Leslie,  pp.  117,  196. 


208  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

obliges  her  to  cry  and  sob  most  bitterly' l  Also,  among 
the  modern  Egyptians,  'if  the  bridegroom  is  young, 
one  of  his  friends  has  to  carry  him  part  of  the  way  to 
the  hareem,  to  show  his  bashfulness!  2  So  that  where 
the  carrying  of  the  bride  or  bridegroom  is  not  merely 
due  to  the  same  feelings  that  caused  our  own  ances- 
tors to  add  solemnity  to  their  weddings  by  such 
singular  sights  as  blue  postilions,  it  appears  in  many 
cases  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  prudish  way  of  say- 
ing, that  matrimony  is  and  ought  to  be  an  estate 
forced  upon  reluctant  victims,  not  entered  upon  by 
voluntary  agents.  The  early  Christian  Church  said 
the  same  ;  but  where  the  saint  and  the  savage  meet 
in  sentiment  they  differ  in  expression. 

Were  it  not  for  some  of  the  concomitant  and  inci- 
dental signs,  the  bowed  or  veiled  head,  the  dishevelled 
hair,  it  might  be  said  that  the  positive  statements  of 
Cranz,  Egede,  Burchell,  and  other  writers  arose  from 
malobservation  or  from  pure  mistake.  This  objection, 
therefore,  is  of  little  avail ;  and  however  difficult  it 
may  be  to  account  for  the  presence  of  such  sentiments 
among  tribes  of  so  rude  a  type  as  the  Esquimaux,  the 
Kamschadals,  and  the  Bushmen,  the  fact  remains, 
that  in  the  cases  above  cited  the  '  form  of  capture '  is 
explicable  as  having  its  origin  in  primitive  concep- 
tions of  what  is  due  to  delicacy ;  as  being,  in  fact, 

1  Burckhardt,  Notes,  p.  151. 

*  Lane,  Modern  Egyptians,  i.  217. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  209 

the  original  expression  of  them  in  the  language  of 
pantomime  so  common  to  savages.1  And  the  pre- 
sence of  such  feelings  of  delicacy  may  be  often  sus- 
pected, even  where  they  are  not  directly  mentioned, 
in  the  ceremony  of  capture ;  as,  for  instance,  in  the 
African  kingdom  of  Futa,  where  the  form  of  capture 
prevails  in  the  usual  way,  but  where  we  have  the  in- 
direct evidence  that  for  months  after  marriage  the 
bride  never  stirs  abroad  without  a  veil,  and  that  Futa 
wives  are  '  so  bashful  that  they  never  permit  their  hus- 
bands to  see  them  unveiled  for  three  years  after  their 
marriage.'2 

There  is,  however,  no  reason  to  press  this  explana- 
tion too  far,  nor  to  account  it  the  only  efficient  cause. 
Quite  as  potent,  and  perhaps  a  more  natural  one,  is 
dislike  and  disinclination  on  the  part  of  the  bride, 
which  compels  the  bridegroom  to  resort  to  force.  The 
conditions  of  savage  life  are  a  sufficient  explanation  of 
this,  irrespective  of  any  old  custom  of  capturing  wives 
out  of  a  tribe  by  reason  of  a  prejudice  against  marrying 
within  it.  A  man  proposes  personally  or  mediately 

1  Gaya,  Marriage  Ceremonies  (pp.  30,  48, 81),  for  similar  old  customs, 
interpreted  in  the  same  way,  formerly  in  vogue  in  France,  Germany, 
and  Turkey. 

2  Astley,  Collection  of  Voyages,  ii.  240,  273.     It  is  a  common  rule 
of  etiquette  that,  when  a  proposal  of  marriage  is  made,  the  purport  of  the 
visit  shall  only  be  approached  indirectly  and  cursorily.     It  is  curious  to 
find  such  a  rule  among  the  Red  Indians  (Algic  Researches,  ii.  24;  i.  130), 
the  Kafirs  (Maclean,  p.  47),  the  Esquimaux  (Cranz,  i.  146),  even  the 
Hottentots  (Kolbe,  i.  149). 

P 


210  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

to  the  parents  or  relations  of  the  woman  he  fancies 
for  a  wife  ;  if  they  consent  to  accept  him  as  a  son-in- 
law  and  they  agree  as  to  a  price,  there  is  a  reserved 
stipulation  on  the  part  of  the  vendor  :  '  If  you  can  get 
her'  In  Tartary,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  after  such 
a  bargain,  the  daughter  would  flee  to  one  of  her  kins- 
folk to  hide  ;  the  father  would  say  to  the  husband, 
'  My  daughter  is  yours  ;  take  her  wheresoever  you  can 
find  her.'  The  suitor,  seeking  with  his  friends  till  he 
found  her,  would  then  take  her  by  force  and  carry  her 
home.1  Here  the  girl's  reluctance  is  not  so  much 
feigned  as  overridden,  and  is  only  so  far  formal  in  that 
it  is  entirely  disregarded.  Often  it  is  no  mere  cere- 
mony on  her  part,  but  a  natural  and  genuine  protest 
— a  protest  against  being  treated  as  a  chattel,  not  as 
an  individual — but  a  protest  which,  opposed  as  it  is  to 
parental  persuasion  and  marital  force,  tends,  as  far  as 
the  husband  is  concerned,  to  pass  into  the  region  of 
the  merest  ceremony. 

A  few  instances  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  co- 
operation of  dislike  and  force  in  savage  matrimony. 
In  some  Californian  tribes  the  consent  of  the  girl 
is  necessary,  although  'if  she  violently  opposes  the 
match  she  is  seldom  compelled  to  marry  or  to  be  sold.' 
Among  the  Neshenam  tribe  of  the  same  people  '  the 
girl  has  no  voice  whatever  in  the  matter,  and  resistance 

1  Pinkerton,  vii.  34. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  211 

on  her  part  merely  occasions  brute  force  to  be  used 
by  her  purchaser.' l     So  in  the  Utah  country,  where 
'  families  and  tribes  living  at  peace  would  steal  each 
others'  wives  and  children  and  sell  them  as  slaves,'  a 
wife   is  usually  bought  of   her   parents ;  but   should 
she  refuse,  '  the  warrior  collects  his  friends,  carries  off 
tJie  recusant  fair]  and  thus  espouses  her.2     So  among 
the  Navajoes  '  the  consent  of  the  father  is  absolute, 
and  the  one  so  purchased  assents  or  is  taken  away  by 
force' 3     It  is  the  same  with  the  Horse    Indians   of 
Patagonia.     There,  as  elsewhere,  it  is  common  for  a 
cacique  to  have  several   wives,   and  poor  men  only 
one,  marriages  being  '  made  by  sale  more  frequently 
than   by   mutual   agreement.'      The    price    is    often 
high,   and   girls  are   betrothed   without  their   know- 
ledge   in   infancy   and    married   without   their   con- 
sent  at  maturity.     But   'if  a   girl   dislikes  a  match 
made   for   her    she    resists ;    and    although    dragged 
forcibly  to  the  tent  of  her  lawful  owner,  plagues  him  so 
much   by  her   contumacy  that  he   at  last  turns  her 
away,  and  sells  her  to  the  person  on  whom  she  has 
fixed  her  affections.'4  In  Africa,  Yorubas,  Mandingoes, 
and  Koossa  Kafirs  follow  the  custom  of  infant  betro- 
thal (and  it  is  worth  notice  as  being  quite  in  accord- 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  &c.,  i.  389. 

2  Ibid.,  i.  436.  *  Ibid.,  i.  512. 
*  Fitzroy,  Voyage  of '*  Beagle,'1 ii.  152. 

P  2 


212  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

ance  with  the  theory  that  kinship  was  originally  traced 
through  mothers,  that  Yoruba,  Mandingo,  and  Loango 
Africans,  and  some  Esquimaux  tribes,  regard  the 
mother's  consent  only  as  necessary  to  an  engage- 
ment) ; l  but  sometimes  a  Yoruba  girl,  when  the  time 
comes  for  her  to  fulfil  her  mother's  engagement, 
preferring  some  other  than  the  intended  husband, 
absolutely  refuses  to  co-operate.  '  Then  she  is  either 
teased  and  worried  into  submission  or  the  husband 
agrees  to  receive  back  her  dowry  and  release  her.' 2 
A  Mandingo  girl  must  either  marry  a  suitor  chosen 
for  her  or  remain  ever  afterwards  unmarried.  Should 
she  refuse,  the  lover  is  authorized  by  the  parents  '  by 
the  laws  of  the  country  to  seize  on  the  girl  as  his 
slave.'  3  If  a  Koossa  girl,  bound  by  the  contract  of  her 
parents,  '  makes  any  attempt  at  resisting  the  union, 
corporal  punishment  is  even  resorted  to,  in  order  to 
compel  her  submission.' 4 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  resistance  on  the  part 
of  the  bride  in  many  cases  procures  her  ultimate  re- 
lease, so  that  her  wishes  in  the  matter  are  always  an 
element  to  be  considered.  In  all  contracts  of  marriage, 
to  which  she  is  seldom  a  party,  there  is  accordingly, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  an  implied  covenant  that  a 


1  Compare  Bowen's  Central  Africa,  pp.  303-304  ;  Gray's  Travels  in 
South  Africa,  p,  56;  Pinkerton,  xvi.  568-569;  and  Bancroft,  i.  66. 

Bo  wen,  p.  104. 
*  Pinkerton,  xvi.  873.  4  Lichtenstein,  i.  263. 


EARLY   WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  213 

daughter  shall  be  so  far  allowed  a  voice  in  the  matter 
that  if  she  can  make  good  her  resistance  she  shall  not 
become  the  property  of  the  intending  purchaser.  The 
frequency  with  which  it  must  have  occurred  that  a 
girl  would  defeat  a  match  she  disliked  by  flight,  elope- 
ment, or  resistance,  would  tend  to  create  a  sort  of 
common  law  right,  for  all  daughters  sold  in  marriage 
to  a  certain  '  run '  for  their  independence  ; l  and  the 
amusement  naturally  connected  with  the  exercise  of 
snch  a  right  would  help  to  preserve  the  custom  in  a 
modified  form  ;  so  that,  however  slight  in  some  cases 
might  be  the  modesty  of  the  bride  or  her  dislike  of 
her  suitor,  her  friends,  if  only  for  the  sport  of  the  thing, 
would  gladly  enact  the  fiction  of  an  outrage  to  be 
resented,  of  a  woman  to  be  defended.  In  all  the  in- 
teresting cases  of  the  form  of  capture  cited  by  Sir 
John  Lubbock  it  appears  that  in  eight  (that  is,  among 
the  Mantras,  the  Kalmucks,  the  Fuejians,  the  Fijians, 
the  New  Zealanders,  the  Papuans  of  New  Guinea,  the 
Philippine  Islanders,  and  the  African  Kafirs  and 
Futas),  the  ceremony  affords  the  bride  a  chance  of  an 
effectual  escape  from  a  match  she  dislikes.  Should 
she  fly,  should  she  hide  successfully,  or  should  her 
friends  defend  her  successfully,  the  contract  between 

1  Thus   Bonwick  mentions  a  custom  whereby  a  woman  '  was  al- 
lowed some  chance  in  her  life-settlement.     The  applicant  for  her  han  d 
was   permitted  on  a  certain  day  to  run  for  her  ; '  if  she  passed  thre  e 
appointed  trees  without  being  caught  she  was  free. — Daily  Life,  &c .» 
p.  70. 


214  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

her  parents  and  suitor  becomes  null  and  void ;  or  some- 
times, as  among  the  Zulus  and  Bassutos,  the  price  for 
her  is  raised.1  And  it  is  remarkable  with  what  pre- 
cision the  rules  of  the  chase  have  been  elaborated  in 
many  instances  ;  as  by  the  Oleepas  of  Central  Cali- 
fornia, among  whom,  if  a  bride  is  found  twice  out  of 
three  times,  she  is  legally  the  seeker's  ;  and  the  bride- 
groom, if  he  fails  the  first  time,  is  allowed  a  second 
and  final  attempt  a  few  weeks  later.  'The  simple 
result  is,  that  if  the  girl  likes  him  she  hides  where  she 
is  easily  found  ;  but  if  she  disapproves  of  the  match  a 
dozen  Indians  cannot  find  her.' 2 

Other  feelings  would  also  be  present  to  sustain  the 
pretence  of  wife-capture.  For  the  savage  parent,  in 
parting  with  his  daughter  for  a  favourable  settlement, 
does  not  act  from  gratuitous  cruelty  ;  he  provides  for 
her  future  as  best  he  can,  sometimes  in  accordance 
with  her  wishes,  sometimes  against  them.  As  a  rule 
marriage  for  her  is  a  change  for  the  worse  ;  but  if 
she  does  not  dislike  the  bridegroom  to  the  extent  of 
availing  herself  of  her  prescriptive  and  real  chance  of 
escape,  her  natural  feelings  for  her  parents  and  rela- 

1  It  is  also  an  old  custom  in  Finland,  that,  when  a  suitor  tells  a  girl 
he  has  settled  matters  with  her  parents,  she  should  ask  him  what  he 
has  given,  and  then,  declaring  it  to  be  too  little,  should  proceed  to  run 
away  from  him. — Marmier,  i.  176. 

2  Delano,  Life  on  the  Plains,  p.  346.     In  Notes  and  Queries,  1861, 
vol.  xii.  414,  it  is  said  that  in  Wales  a  girl  would  often  escape  a  disliked 
suitor  through  the  custom  of  the  pursuit  on  horseback — by  taking  a 
line  of  country  of  her  own. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  215 

tions  would  make  it  incumbent  on  her  at  least  to  affect 
a  dutiful  regret  at  leaving  them  (in  cases  where  she 
does),  by  a  half-bashful,  half-serious  resistance.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  find  a  case  of  capture,  whether 
in  form  or  in  fact,  which  is  not  readily  explicable  as 
simply  the  outcome  of  the  natural  affections  and  their 
protest  against  so  artificial  an  arrangement  as  marriage 
by  purchase  ;  for  with  marriage  by  purchase  the  form 
of  capture  always  co-exists,  so  that  capture  was  not 
necessarily  an  earlier  mode  of  marriage  than  that  by 
purchase  or  agreement.  The  mock  fights  between 
the  party  of  the  bride  and  that  of  the  bridegroom 
among  so  many  Indian  tribes ;  1  the  dances,  lasting 
several  days,  during  which  it  is  the  business  of  the 
squaws  to  keep  the  bridegroom  at  a  distance  from  his 
bride,  among  the  Tucanas  of  South  America;2  the  simi- 
lar duty  which  devolves  on  the  matrons  of  the  tribe 
at  Sumatran  weddings  ; 3  the  mock  skirmishes  at  Arab 
weddings,  and  the  efforts  of  the  negresses  to  keep  the 
bridegroom  away  from  the  camel  of  the  bride  ; 4  these 
are  surely  more  intelligible,  as  arising  from  the  rude 
ideas  and  customs  of  savage  life,  than  as  being  sur- 
vivals, artificially  preserved,  of  a  time  when  the  bride 
was  really  fought  for  or  stolen  ;  and  if  such  explana- 

1  Dalton,  Descriptive  Ethnology  of  Bengal,  pp.  16,  194,  234,  252, 

319. 

2  Bates,  Naturalist  on  the  River  Amazon,  p.  382. 
*  Marsden,  Sumatra,  p.  269. 

4  Denham,  Discoveries  in  Africa,  i.  32-35. 


216  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

tion  is  sufficient,  should  it  not  logically  be  admitted 
before  resorting  to  the  hypothesis  of  a  practice  whose 
very  existence  is  rather  an  inference  from  such  cere- 
monies than  a  cause  observable  in  actual  operation  ? 

To  pass  to  a  third  and  quite  distinct  class  of  mar- 
riages by  capture,  in  which  the  essential  element  is 
not  maidenly  bashfulness  nor  real  repugnance,  but  the 
voluntary  elopement  of  a  girl  with  her  lover,  in  defeat 
of  a  prior  contract  of  betrothal.  The  large  part  which 
questions  of  profit  and  property  play  in  savage  betro- 
thals can  never  be  lost  sight  of,  in  estimating  the 
causes  of  real  wife  abduction,  either  within  or  without 
the  tribe.  The  primary  conception  of  a  daughter  is  a 
saleable  possession,  a  source  of  profit,  to  her  clan  in 
marketings  with  other  clans  or  to  her  parents  in  their 
bargains  in  her  own  clan.  This  fact  alone  militates 
against  the  supposition  of  the  wide  prevalence  of 
female  infanticide  in  primitive  communities,  the  pre- 
judice being  rather  in  favour  of  killing  the  boys  than 
the  girls  ;  not  solely  for  the  use  of  the  latter  as  slaves 
and  labourers,  but  for  the  price  which  even  among 
Fuejians  or  Bushmen  is  payable  in  some  form  or 
another  for  their  companionship  as  wives.  Abiponian 
mothers  spared  their  girls  oftener  than  their  boys, 
because  their  sons  when  grown  up  would  want  where- 
withal to  purchase  a  wife,  and  so  tend  to  impoverish 
them  ;  whilst  their  daughters  would  bring  them  in 
money  by  their  sale  in  that  capacity.1  To  raise  the 

1  Dobritzhoffer,  ii.  97. 


EARLY   WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  217 

price  by  limiting  the  supply  was  also  the  reason  why 
the  Guanas  of  America  preferred  to  bury  their  girls 
alive  rather  than  their  boys.1 

From  this  view  of  daughters  as  saleable  com- 
modities comes  polygamy  for  the  rich,  polyandry,  or 
illicit  elopement,  for  the  poor.  Among  the  Hos  of 
India  so  high  at  one  time  was  the  price  in  cattle  placed 
by  parents  on  their  daughters  that  the  large  number  of 
adult  unmarried  girls  became  a  '  very  peculiar  feature 
in  the  social  state  of  every  considerable  village  of  the 
Kohlan.'  What,  then,  was  the  result  ?  That  '  young 
men  counteracted  the  machinations  of  avaricious 
parents  against  the  course  of  true  love  by  forcibly 
carrying  off  the  girl,'  thus  avoiding  extortion  by  run- 
ning away  with  her.  The  parents  in  such  cases  had 
to  submit  to  terms  proposed  by  arbitrators  ;  but  at 
last  wife-abduction  became  so  common  that  it  could 
only  be  checked  by  the  limitation  by  general  consent 
of  the  number  of  cattle  payable  at  marriage.2 

'  A  very  singular  scene,'  it  is  said,  '  may  some- 
times be  noticed  in  the  markets  of  Singbhoom.  A 
young  man  suddenly  makes  a  pounce  on  a  girl  and 
carries  her  off  bodily,  his  friends  covering  the  retreat 
(like  a  group  from  the  picture  of  the  Rape  of  the 

1  Wuttke,  ffeidenthum,  i.  185.      'Die  Guanas  in  Amerika  begra- 
ben  ihre  Kinder  lebendig,  besonders  die  Madchen,  um  diese  seltntr 
und  gesuchter  zu  machenS 

2  Dalton,  p.  192. 


218  EARLY   WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

Sabines).  This  is  generally  a  summary  method  of 
surmounting  the  obstacles  that  cruel  parents  may  have 
placed  in  the  lovers'  path  ;  but  though  it  is  sometimes 
done  in  anticipation  of  the  favourable  inclination  of 
the  girl  herself,  and  in  spite  of  her  struggles  and 
tears,  no  disinterested  person  interferes,  and  the  girls, 
late  companions  of  the  abducted  maiden,  often  ap- 
plaud the  exploit.' ' 

In  Afghanistan  the  pecuniary  value  of  women  has 
given  rise  to  the  curious  custom  of  assessing  part  of 
the  fines  in  criminal  cases  in  a  certain  number  of 
young  women  payable  in  atonement  as  wives  to  the 
plaintiff  or  to  his  relations  from  the  family  of  the 
defendant.  Thus  murder  is  or  was  expiated  by  the 
payment  of  twelve  young  women  ;  the  cutting  off  a 
hand,  an  ear,  or  a  nose  by  that  of  six  ;  the  breaking 
of  a  tooth  by  that  of  three  ;  a  wound  above  the  fore- 
head by  that  of  one.  This  was  the  logical  result  of 
the  state  of  thought  which  produces  wife-purchase  ; 
but  there  was  also  another.  For  in  the  country  parts, 
where  matches  generally  begin  in  attachment,  an 
enterprising  lover  may  avoid  the  obstacle  of  parental 
consent  by  a  form  of  capture,  which  has  a  legal 
sanction,  though  it  does  not  exempt  the  captor  from 
subsequent  payment.  This  consists  in  a  man's  'seizing 
an  opportunity  of  cutting  off  a  lock  of  her  (the  woman's) 

1  Colonel  Dalton,  in  Trans.  Eth,  Sac.,  vi.  27. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  219 

hair,  snatching  away  her  veil,  or  throwing  a  sheet 
over  her,  and  claiming  her  as  his  affianced  wife.'  But 
the  most  common  expedient  is  an  ordinary  elope- 
ment ;  though  this  is  held  an  outrage  to  a  family 
equivalent  to  the  murder  of  one  of  its  members  ;  and 
being  pursued  with  the  same  rancour,  is  often  the 
cause  of  long  and  bloody  wars  between  the  clans  ; 
for  as  the  fugitive  couple  are  never  refused  an 
asylum,  'the  seduction  of  a  woman  of  one  Oolooss 
by  a  man  of  another,  or  a  man's  eloping  with  a  girl 
of  his  own  Oolooss,'  is  the  commonest  cause  of 
feuds  between  the  clans.1 

Love  attachments,  in  defeat  of  parental  plans, 
lead  to  very  similar  results  in  Bokhara.  For  '  the 
daughter  of  a  Turcoman  has  a  high  price  ;  and  the 
swain,  in  despair  of  making  a  legitimate  purchase, 
seizes  his  sweetheart,  seats  her  behind  him  on  the 
same  horse,  and  gallops  off  to  the  nearest  camp, 
where  the  parties  are  united,  and  separation  is  im- 
possible. The  parents  and  relations  pursue  the  lovers, 
and  the  marriage  is  adjusted  by  an  intermarriage 
with  some  female  relation  of  the  bridegroom,  while 
he  himself  becomes  bound  to  pay  so  many  camels  and 
horses  as  the  price  of  his  bride.' 2 

There  is,  therefore,  evidence  to  justify  the  theory 
that  the  form  of  capture  may  often  be  explained  as 

1  Elphinstone,  Cabul,  i.  239 ;  ii.  23. 

2  Burnes,  Travels  to  Bokhara,  iii.  47. 


220  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

an  attempt  to  regulate  by  law  the  danger  to  a  tribe 
arising  from  too  frequent  elopements,  naturally  re- 
sulting from  the  abuse  of  the  parental  right  of  selling 
daughters.  In  Sumatra  the  defeat  of  matrimonial 
plans  by  an  elopement  with  a  preferred  suitor  is  so 
common  as  to  be  sanctioned  and  regulated  by  law, 
being  known  as  the  system  of  marriage  by  telari 
gadis ;  the  father  in  such  a  case  having  to  pay  the 
fine  to  which  he  would  have  been  liable  for  bestowing 
his  daughter  after  engagement  to  another  suitor,  and 
only  being  allowed  to  recover  her,  if  he  catches  her  in 
immediate  pursuit.  '  When  the  parties,'  says  Mr. 
McLennan,  '  cannot  agree  about  the  price,  nothing  is 
more  common  among  the  Kalmucks,  Kirghiz,  Nogais, 
and  Circassians  than  to  carry  the  lady  off  by  actual 
force  of  arms.  The  wooer  having  once  got  the  lady 
into  his  yurt,  she  is  his  wife  by  the  law,  and  peace  is 
established  by  her  relations  coming  to  terms  as  to  the 
price.'  So  too  in  England,  elopements  have  often 
preceded  and  promoted  more  definite  marriage  settle- 
ments, or,  with  some  slight  observances,  have  stood 
legally  as  a  substitute  for  them. 

Considering,  then,  that  the  affections  and  wishes 
do  not  count  for  nothing  even  among  savages ; 
considering  that  among  savages,  more  even  than  in 
civilized  life,  marriage  is  a  question  of  property  and 
of  means,  so  that,  whilst  the  richest  members  of  a 
tribe  almost  universally  have  several  wives,  it  is  often 


EARLY   WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  221 

all  that  the  poorer  can  do  to  get  a  wife  at  all,  we 
have  a  set  of  circumstances  leading  naturally  some- 
times to  voluntary  elopement  on  the  part  of  the  girl, 
in  defeat  of  her  parents,  sometimes  to  literal  wife- 
capture  by  a  man  otherwise  unable  to  become  a 
husband.  This  condition  of  things  leads  of  necessity 
to  polyandry  and  wife-robbery.  In  some  Australian 
tribes,  owing  to  a  disproportion  between  the  sexes, 
many  men  have  to  steal  a  wife  from  a  neighbouring 
horde.  But  it  is  not  their  normal  recognized  mode 
of  marriage.  On  the  contrary,  their  laws  on  this 
subject  are  somewhat  elaborate  ;  and  as  it  appears 
that  before  that  state  of  society  in  which  a  daughter 
belongs  to  her  father  there  is  one  in  which  she 
belongs  to  her  mother,  and  perhaps  a  still  prior  state 
in  which  she  belongs  to  her  tribe,  so  from  their  birth 
Australian  girls  are  appropriated  to  certain  males  of 
the  tribe,  nor  can  the  parents  annul  the  obligation. 
If  the  male  dies  the  mother  may  then  bestow  her 
daughter  on  whom  she  will,  for  by  the  death  of  her 
legal  owner  the  girl  becomes  to  some  extent  the 
property  of  her  relations,  who  have  certain  claims  on 
her  services  for  the  procurement  of  food.  But  to  the 
surrender  of  a  girl  by  her  mother  the  full  consent  of 
the  whole  tribe  is  necessary ;  and  if,  as  sometimes 
happens, '  the  young  people,  listening  rather  to  the 
dictates  of  inclination  than  those  of  law,  improvise 
a  marriage  by  absconding  together,1  they  incur  the 


222  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

fatal  enmity  of  the  whole  tribe.1  According  to  Bon- 
wick,  a  Tasmanian  or  Australian  woman  was  never 
stolen  contrary  to  her  expectations  or  wishes.  Only  if 
all  other  schemes  to  have  her  own  way  failed,  would  a 
girl  face  the  penalty  of  having  '  the  spear  of  the  disap- 
pointed, the  spear  of  the  guardian,  and  the  spears  of  the 
tribe  '  thrown  at  her,  for  her  breach  of  tribal  law.2 

The  conception  of  the  daughters  of  a  clan  as  its 
property,  as  a  source  of  contingent  wealth  to  it,  of 
additional  income  to  it  in  sheep,  dogs,  or  whatever 
the  medium  of  exchange,  tends  to  keep  up  in  many 
cases  that  prohibition  to  marry  in  the  same  clan  or 
subdivision  of  a  tribe  which  is  known  as  exogamy. 
Among  the  Hindu  Kafirs  it  is  said  to  be  uncertain 
why  a  man  may  not  sell  his  girls  to  his  own  tribe, 
and  why  a  man  must  always  buy  his  wife  from 
another  ;  but  it  is  certain  that  for  this  reason  the 
more  girls  a  man  has  born  to  him  the  better  he  is 
pleased  and  the  richer  his  tribe  becomes.3  A  Khond 
father  distributes  among  the  heads  of  the  families, 
belonging  to  his  branch  of  a  tribe,  the  sum  raised  on 
behalf  of  a  son-in-law  by  subscription  from  the  son- 
in-law's  branch.  But,  supposing  a  great  inequality  of 
wealth  to  arise  between  different  clans,  originally 
united  by  profitable  intermarriages,  it  might  become 

1  Trans  Eth.  Soc.,  iii.  348-351,  in  Oldfield's  Aborigines  of  Australia, 
1864. 

*  Bonwick,  pp.  65-68.  *  Latham,  Desc.  Ethn.,  ii.  159. 


EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  223 

more  profitable  to  sell  within  the  clan  than  outside  it, 
so  that  the  same  motives  of  interest  which,  under  some 
circumstances,  would  tend  to  encourage  exogamy 
would  under  others  lead  to  the  opposite  principle,  a 
rich  bridegroom  of  the  same  clan  being  preferable  to 
a  poor  one  of  another,  whether  the  gain  accrued  to  a 
girl's  parents  or  her  clan.  It  is,  perhaps,  for  this  reason 
that  a  Hindu  Kooch  incurs  a  fine  if  he  marries  a 
woman  of  another  clan,  becoming  a  bondsman  till  his 
wife  redeems  him ;  that  is,  till  she  pays  back  to  his  clan 
or  its  chief  what  the  bridegroom,  by  purchasing  her, 
has  alienated  from  the  use  of  the  tribe.1  On  the  other 
hand,  the  reason  given  by  the  Khonds  for  marrying 
women  from  distant  places  was,  that  they  gave  much 
smaller  sums  than  for  women  of  their  own  tribe.2 

Exogamy  and  endogamy  would  thus  co-exist,  as 
the  customs  of  tribes  that  have  attained  to  a  more 
or  less  complete  recognition  of  the  rights  of  pro- 
perty, and  are  so  far  advanced  as  to  be  capable 
of  preserving  complex  rules  of  social  organization. 
Marriages,  therefore,  under  either  regime  are  matters 
generally  of  friendly  settlement,  of  ordinary  contract ; 
and  where  such  arrangements  are  defeated  by  the 
perversity  of  the  principal  parties — namely,  the  bride 
or  the  bridegroom — what  more  natural  than  the 
device  of  giving  legal  sanction  to  an  elopement  by 
settling  a  subsequent  compensation  with  the  parent  ? 
1  Latham,  Desc,  Ethn.,  i.  96.  2  Campbell,  Indian  Journal,  142. 


224  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

The  custom  of  exogamy  is  so  widely  spread  over 
the  world  that  its  origin  must  be  sought  in  conditions 
as  prevalent  as  itself,  and  it  is  possible  that  it  arose 
out  of  the  same  condition  which  certainly  sustains  it 
and   is   co- extensive    with    itself,    namely,   from   the 
marketable  position  of  women.     That  female  infanti- 
cide should  have  led  to  it  is  improbable,  not  only  from 
the   comparative  rarity  of  the   practice   among  the 
rudest  tribes,  but  from  the  negative  instance  of  the 
Todas,  a  wild  Indian  hill-tribe,  who,  notwithstanding 
the  scarcity  of  their  women,  and  a  scarcity  actually 
attributed  to  former  female  infanticide,  'never  con- 
tract marriage  with  the  other  tribes,  though  living 
together  on  most  friendly  terms.'  J     Judging  d  priori, 
we  should  expect  to  find  as  of  earlier  date  a  prejudice 
in  favour  of  tribal  exclusiveness,  of  strict  endogamy. 
The  idea  of  the  Abors  that  marriage  out  of  the  clan  is 
a  sin  only  to  be  washed  out  by  sacrifice — a  sin  so 
great  as  to  cause  war  among  the  elements,  and  even 
obscuration  of  the  sun  and  moon — has  a  more  archaic 
appearance   than   the    contrary   principle ;    and   the 
confinement  of  marriages  to  a  few  families  of  known 
purity  of  descent  is   characteristic   of  some  of  the 
lowest  Hindu  castes.*     The  prejudice  against  foreign 
women  is  so  strong  that  there  is  often  a  tendency  to 

1  "Journal  of  Anthropology  (July  1870),  p.  33;  Trans.  Eth.  Soc.t  vii. 
236,  242. 

»  Buchanan,  Travels,  i.  251,  273,  321,  358,  394;  iii.  100. 


EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  22$ 

regard  female  prisoners  of  war  as  merely  slaves,  as 
not  of  the  same  rank  with  the  real  wives  of  their 
captors.  Thus,  'though  the  different  tribes  of  the 
Aht  nation  are  frequently  at  war  with  one  another, 
women  are  not  captured  from  other  tribes  for 
marriage,  but  only  to  be  kept  as  slaves.  The  idea  of 
slavery  connected  with  capture  is  so  common  that  a 
free-born  Aht  would  hesitate  to  marry  a  woman 
taken  in  war,  whatever  her  rank  had  been  in  her  own 
tribe.'  l  The  Caribs,  too,  if  they  kept  female  prisoners 
as  wives  always  regarded  them  as  slaves,  as  standing 
on  a  lower  level  than  their  legitimate  wives.2 

Leaving,  however,  the  obscure  problem  of  the  origin 
of  exogamy,  there  is  a  point  of  view  from  which  both 
that  and  endogamy  are  one.  For  exogamy  as  re- 
gards the  subdivisions  of  a  tribe  is  endogamy  as  re- 
gards the  tribe  itself,  tending  in  fact  to  preserve  tribal 
unity  and  to  check  an  indefinite  divergency  of  interests 
and  dialects.  For  example,  where  a  Hindoo  caste  or 
tribe  is  composed  of  several  Gotrams,  no  person  of 
whom  may  marry  an  individual  of  the  same  Gotram, 
it  is  evident  that  the  unity  of  the  tribe  is  actually 
sustained  by  the  exogamy  of  its  constituent  parts. 
Such  a  custom  therefore,  howsoever  originated,  would, 
as  serviceable  in  maintaining  tribal  unity  against 
hostile  neighbouring  people,  tend  to  survive  from 
motives  of  common  expediency,  from  its  adaptation 
1  Sproat,  p.  98.  2  Rochefort,  Les  fles  Antilles,  545. 

Q 


226  EARLY   WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

to  the  interests  of  peace  ;  a  beneficial  result  of  the 
system  which  in  Mr.  Bancroft's  account  of  the  Thlin- 
keet  and  Kutchin  Indians  clearly  appears.1  The 
Thlinkeets  are  nationally  divided  into  two  great  clans, 
under  the  totems  of  the  Wolf  and  the  Raven,  and 
these  two  are  again  subdivided  into  numerous  sub- 
totems.  '  In  this  clanship  some  singular  social  facts 
present  themselves.  People  are  at  once  thrust  widely 
apart  and  yet  drawn  together.  Tribes  of  the  same 
clan  may  not  war  on  each  other,  but  at  the  same  time 
members  of  the  same  clan  may  not  marry  each  other. 
Thus  the  young  Wolf  warrior  must  seek  his  mate 

among    the    Ravens Obviously   this   singular 

social  fancy  tends  greatly  to  keep  the  various  tribes  of 
the  nation  at  peace'  The  Kutchins,  again,  are  divided 
into  three  castes,  resident  in  different  territories,  no 
two  persons  of  the  same  caste  being  allowed  to  marry. 
'  This  system  operates  strongly  against  war  between 
the  tribes,  as  in  war  it  is  caste  against  caste,  not 
tribe  against  tribe.  As  the  father  is  never  of  the 
same  caste  as  the  son,  who  receives  clanship  from  the 
mother,  there  can  never  be  international  war  without 
ranging  fathers  and  sons  against  each  other.'  So 
among  the  Khonds,  who  punish  intermarriage  be- 
tween persons  of  the  same  tribe  with  death,  the  inter- 
vention of  the  women  was  always  essential  to  peace, 
as  they  were  neutral  between  the  tribe  of  their  fathers 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  \.  109,  132. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  227 

and  that  of  their  husbands.1  But  it  is  difficult  to 
think  that,  if  hostile  relations  between  exogamous 
clans  became  permanent,  the  several  clans  would  still 
insist  on  exogamous  marriages  as  the  only  marriages 
legally  valid,  and  consequently  regard  the  use  of  force 
or  fraud  as  the  only  legitimate  title  to  a  wife. 

It  seems  indeed  certain  that  wherever  the  rule  of 
exogamy  exists  it  may  be  analysed  into  a  prohibition 
to  marry  within  the  divisions  of  a  larger  group  ;  that 
larger  group  being  consciously  recognised  as  uniting 
the  divergent  families  by  resemblance  of  dialect, 
common  political  ties,  or  a  traditional  common 
descent.  The  Kalmucks,  for  instance,  call  themselves 
'the  peculiar  people,'  or 'the  four  allies,'  and  any 
danger  of  their  national  dissolution  is  obviously 
diminished  by  the  very  fact  of  the  exogamy  of  their 
four  clans.  The  Circassians,  whose  constituent  brother- 
hoods are  exogamous,  by  the  occasional  assemblies  of 
the  brotherhoods  for  the  settlement  of  disputes,  show 
a  consciousness  of  their  political  unity,  which  by  the 
exogamy  of  the  brotherhoods  they  help  to  maintain. 
The  Hindu  castes  preserve  their  mutual  exclusiveness 
by  the  very  fact  of  compelling  all  their  constituent 
families  to  intermingle  in  marriage,  and  so  prevent- 
ing any  one  of  them  from  dissolving  the  common  rela- 
tionship by  absolute  separation  or  independent  growth. 
So  that  exogamy  rather  sustains  than  prevents  a 

1  Macpherson,  65. 
Q  2 


•228  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

system  of  marriages  within  the  same  stock,  and  is  a 
mark  of  a  higher  conception  of  social  organisation, 
when  people  have  learned  to  classify  themselves  with 
respect  to  their  neighbours,  when  tribal  and  personal 
property  is  well  established,  and  when,  consequently, 
marriages  between  the  groups  can  be  effected  by 
purchase  better  than  by  violence.  Exogamy  there- 
fore as  the  product  or  concomitant  of  a  somewhat 
advanced  state  of  thought,  not  of  utter  barbarism, 
would  never  make  marriages  by  capture  a  necessity 
of  existence  ;  but,  if  it  did,  it  would  argue  so  much 
culture  in  a  tribe  capable  of  maintaining  such  rules,  as 
would  equally  justify  us  in  ascribing  to  them  moral 
feelings,  not  less  advanced  and  refined  than  those 
involved  in  their  adherence  to  so  restrictive  a  political 
system. 

South  Australia  supplies  a  typical  illustration  of 
the  confusion  relating  to  intertribal  marriages  which 
arises  from  the  vague  use  of  the  word  tribe.  For 
wherever  there  is  reason  to  suspect  that  the  word  clan 
or  family  should  stand  for  the  word  tribe,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  exogamy  predicated  of  the  tribe  only 
prevails  between  its  constituent  elements ;  in  other 
words,  that  it  is  only,  as  among  the  Kalmucks,  Cir- 
cassians, or  Hindu  castes,  an  extended  form  of  the 
principle  of  endogamy.  Thus,  Collins,  describing 
wife-capture  in  New  South  Wales,  says  that  'it  is 
believed '  the  women  so  taken  are  always  selected 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  229 

from  women  of  a  different  tribe  from  that  of  the 
males,  and  from  one  with  whom  they  are  at  enmity ; 
that  as  wives  '  they  are  incorporated  into  the  tribes 
to  which  their  husbands  belong,  and  but  seldom  quit 
them  for  others.'  But  he  uses  the  word  tribe  as  con- 
vertible with  the  word  family,  as  when  he  speaks  of 
the  natives  near  Port  Jackson  being  distributed  into 
families,  each  under  the  government  of  its  own  headr 
and  deriving  its  name  from  its  place  of  residence.1 
And  the  statements  of  Captain  Hunter,  a  previous 
writer,  that  the  natives  are  associated  '  in  tribes  of 
many  families  together,'  living  apparently  without 
a  fixed  residence ;  that  '  the  tribe  takes  its  name, 
from  the  place  of  their  general  residence  ; '  and  that, 
the  different  families  wander  in  different  directions* 
for  food,  but  unite  on  occasion  of  disputes  with  an- 
other tribe,  make  it  still  more  probable  that  when 
Collins  spoke  of  different  tribes  he  meant  merely 
different  families,  or  groups,  which  with  all  their 
separate  wanderings  united  sometimes  in  cases  of 
common  danger.  So  when  Captain  Hunter  himself 
says  that  '  there  is  some  reason  to  suppose  that  most 
of  their  wives  are  taken  by  force  from  the  tribes  with 
whom  they  are  at  variance,  as  the  females  bear  no 
proportion  to  the  males,'  we  may  take  it  that  by  tribes 
he  means  families,  and  families  who  recognise  their 
community  of  blood  when  a  really  different  tribe 
1  Collins  (1796),  Nna  Soitth  Wales,  362,  351-3. 


230  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

provokes  their  hostility  by  assembling  as  a  tribe 
themselves.1  Mr.  Stanbridge,  who  spent  eighteen 
years  in  the  wilds  of  Victoria,  corroborates  this  view ; 
for,  according  to  him,  each  tribe  has  its  own  bound- 
aries, the  land  of  which  is  parcelled  out  amongst 
families  and  carefully  transmitted  by  direct  descent ; 
these  boundaries  being  so  sacredly  maintained  that 
the  member  of  no  one  family  will  venture  on  the 
lands  of  a  neighbouring  one  without  invitation.  The 
several  families  (or  tribes)  unite  for  mutual  purposes 
under  a  chief.  The  women  often,  but  not  always, 
marry  into  distant  tribes  ;  they  are  generally  betrothed 
in  their  infancy,  but  if  they  grow  up  unbetrothed  the 
father's  consent  must  be  solicited ;  failing  him,  the 
brother's ;  then  the  uncle's ;  and  last  of  all  that  of  a 
council  or  a  chief  of  a  tribe.2  That  force  was  ever 
the  normal  method  by  which  marriages  were  effected 
in  Australia,  there  is  no  proof;  that,  on  the  contrary, 
mutual  likings  often  set  the  law,  is  proved  by  the 
story  of  the  native  captive  girl,  who,  after  living  among 
the  colonists  for  some  time,  expressed  a  desire  to  go 
away  and  be  married  to  a  young  native  of  her  acquaint- 
ance ;  albeit  that  she  left  him  after  three  days,  return- 
ing sadly  beaten  and  jealous  of  the  other  wife.3 

1  Hunter  (1790),  Voyage  to  New  South  Wales,  62,  494. 

2  Trans.  Eth.  Soc.,  L   217-8,  and  compare  Sir  G.  Grey,  Travels, 
&*c.,  ii.  224, 

1  Hunter,  466,  479. 


EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  231 

Quite  distinct,  again,  either  from  the  real  or  pre- 
tended reluctance  of  a  savage  girl  to  become  a  bride, 
or  from  the  custom  of  forcing  an  avaricious  parent  to 
a  settlement  by  the  shorter  process  of  taking  first  and 
paying  afterwards,  is  the  custom  of  stealing  women 
from  the  same  or  a  neighbouring  clan,  a  custom  which 
prevailed  widely  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries,  and  which  in  the 
latter  country  has  been  '  glorified  in  a  whole  literature 
of  songs  and  ballads.' l 

That  polygamy  and  wife-purchase  and  artificial 
tribal  regulations  often  lead  to  such  a  result  cannot 
be  denied  ;  but  that  it  is  anywhere  a  system,  sustained 
by  prejudices,  whencesoever  derived,  seems  completely 
unwarranted  by  the  evidence  hitherto  collected.  The 
Coinmen  of  Patagonia,  who  made  annual  inroads  on 
the  Tekeenica  tribe,  killing  the  men  and  carrying  off 
not  only  the  women  but  the  children,  dogs,  arrows, 
spears,  and  canoes,  seem  to  have  been  actuated  rather 
by  the  ordinary  motives  of  freebooters  (by  such 
motives,  for  instance,  as  induced  our  early  convict 
settlers  in  Tasmania  to  set  off  with  their  bullock- 
chains  to  make  captives  of  the  native  women 2)  than 
by  any  scruples  of  marrying  relations  at  home.  Carib 
wives  taken  in  war  were  accounted  slaves  ;  and  so  far 
were  the  Caribs  from  being  dependent  on  aggression 

1  Lecky,  Hist,  of  En^Li-i  i  in  Eighteenth  Century,  ii.  366. 

2  Bonwick,  Daily  Life  of  the  Tasmania/is,  60. 


232  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

for  their  wives,  that  before  their  customs  were  modified 
by  acquaintance  with  the  Christians  their  only  legiti- 
mate wives  were  their  cousins.1  If  a  man  had  no 
cousin  to  marry,  or  put  off  doing  so  till  it  was  too 
late,  he  might  then  marry  some  non-relative,  with  the 
consent  of  her  parents.  At  the  festival  that  followed 
a  successful  war  the  parents  vied  with  one  another 
in  offering  their  daughters  as  wives  to  those  who 
were  praised  by  their  captains  as  having  fought  with 
bravery.  The  Caribs  of  the  continent  differed  from 
those  of  the  islands  in  that  men  and  women  spoke 
the  same  language,  not  having  corrupted  their  native 
tongue  by  marriages  with  foreign  women.2  Accord- 
ing to  Humboldt,  the  language  of  the  Caribs  of  the 
continent  was  the  same,  from  the  source  of  the  Rio 
Branco  to  the  steppes  of  Cumana ;  and  the  pride 
of  race  which  led  them  to  withdraw  from  every  other 
people,  and  was  the  cause  of  the  failure  of  all  mis- 
sionary efforts  that  tried  to  combine  them  with  villages 
containing  people  of  another  nation  and  speaking 
another  idiom,  would  surely  have  militated  against 

1  Rochefort,  Les  fles  Antilles,  545.     '  Us  ne  prenaient  pour  famines 
le'gitimes  que  leurs  cousines,  qui  leur  etoyent  aquises  de  droit  naturel.' 
Compare  Burckhardt's  Notes  on  the  Bedouins,  64 :   'A  man  has  an  ex- 
clusive right  to  the  hand  of  his  cousin  ; '  not  that  he  was  obliged  to 
marry  her,  but  without  his  consent  she  could  marry  no  one  else.' 

2  Rochefort,  Les  ties  Antilles,  460.      '  II  est  a  remarquer  que  les  Ca- 
raibes  du  continent,  hommes  et  femmes,  parlent  unmeme  langage,  n'ayant 
point  corrumpu  leur  langue  naturelle  par  des  manages  avec  des  femmes 
etrangeres.'     (1511.) 


EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS.  233 

making  exogamy  a  preliminary  condition  of  matri- 
mony.1 Humboldt,  indeed,  says  that  polygamy  was 
more  extensively  practised  by  the  Caribs  and  other 
nations  that  'preserved  the  custom  of  carrying  off 
young  girls  from  the  neighbouring  tribe ; '  but  it 
would  be  contrary  to  all  previous  accounts  of  the 
people  to  suppose  these  were  their  only  wives,  such  a 
supplement  to  domestic  felicity  being  everywhere  the 
common  reward,  though  seldom  the  chief  object,  of 
successful  war.  The  curious  difference  in  the  language 
of  the  men  and  of  the  women  found  to  exist  among 
the  Caribs  of  the  West  Indian  Archipelago,  and 
attributed  by  tradition  to  the  conquest  of  a  former 
people  on  the  islands,  whose  wives  the  conquerors 
appropriated,  has  perhaps  been  rather  exaggerated,  for 
in  a  list  of  488  words  and  phrases  employed  by  both 
sexes,  in  only  36  is  there  any  difference  marked 
between  the  language  of  the  men  and  that  of  the 
women.  The  origin  of  the  difference  may  be  doubted, 
as  there  were  also  words  and  phrases  used  by  the 
old  men  of  the  people  which  the  younger  ones  might 
not  use  ;  and  there  was  a  war-dialect  of  which  neither 
women,  girls,  or  boys  had  any  knowledge.2  But 
probably  the  difference  arose  from  a  custom  similar 

1  Humboldt,  personal  narrative,  vi.  40-43. 

2  See  chapter  on  Carib  language  in  Les  lies  Antilles,  449,  and  col- 
lection of  u  ords,  where  those  used  exclusively  by  either  sex  are  marked 
with  an  H  and  F  (Homines  et  Fimmes]  respectively. 


234  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

to  that  of  the  Zulus,  which  makes  it  unlawful  for  a 
woman  to  use  any  word  containing  the  sound  of  her 
father-in-law's  name  or  of  the  names  of  her  husband's 
male  relations.  '  Whenever  the  emphatic  syllable  of 
either  of  their  proper  names  occurs  in  any  other  word, 
she  must  avoid  it,  by  either  substituting  an  entirely  new 
word,  or  at  least  another  syllable  in  its  place.  Hence 
this  custom  has  given  rise  to  an  almost  distinct  language 
among  the  women' *  In  consequence  of  this  Hlonipa 
custom,  according  to  another  witness,  '  the  language  at 
this  present  time  almost  presents  the  phenomenon  of  a 
double  one' 2  That  the  Caribs  maintained  the  common 
etiquette  of  reserve  between  parents  and  children-in- 
law,3  makes  it  not  improbable  that  the  reserve  ex- 
tended itself  to  their  language,  and  thus  produced  the 
same  phenomenon  that  we  find  in  South  Africa. 

In  the  same  way  other  cases  of  wife-capture  appear 
simply  in  the  light  of  savage  lawlessness,  which  may 
have  been  more  common  among  quite  primitive  tribes 
than  it  is  in  their  nearest  modern  representatives  ;  but 
which,  if  it  ever  was  widely  prevalent,  is  most  unlikely 
to  have  been  perpetuated  in  symbol,  by  a  form  of  cap- 
ture. If  then  the  form  is  easily  explicable  on  other 
grounds,  such  as  have  been  suggested,  we  have  a  reason 
the  less  for  supposing  in  the  past  a  state  of  things 


1  Maclean,  95.  2  Leslie,  177. 

*  Du  Tertre,  Hist.  Gtn.  des  Antilles,  378. 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  235 

which  would  exclude  from  the  relations  between  male 
and  female  the  happy  influence  of  that  mutual  affection 
which  has  been  shown  not  to  have  been  entirely  absent 
even  among,  perhaps,  the  rudest  of  our  species,  the 
aborigines  of  Australia  or  the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  and 
which  is  certainly  disseminated  more  or  less  widely, 
outside  the  human  race,  through  a  large  part  of  the 
animal  creation. 

It  is  probably  impossible  to  resuscitate  in  imagina- 
tion a  picture  of  primitive  times.  It  is  with  the  lower 
societies  of  the  world  as  with  the  lower  animal  organ- 
isms :  the  more  they  are  studied,  the  more  wonderful 
is  the  complexity  of  structure  they  unfold.  Tribal 
and  subtribal  divisions  of  communities,  tribal  and 
subtribal  divisions  of  territory,  strong  distinctions  of 
rank,  stringent  rules  of  etiquette,  are  found  on  all 
sides  to  characterise  populations  in  other  circumstances 
of  life  scarcely  less  rude  than  the  brute  creation  around 
them.  The  first  beginnings  of  social  evolution  are 
lost,  nor  can  they  be  observed  in  any  known  races 
that  appear  to  have  advanced  the  least  distance  from 
the  starting-point  of  progress.  But,  as  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  external  conditions  of 
primitive  man  were  ever  very  different  from  those  of 
existing  tribes  ;  that  those,  for  instance,  of  the  shell- 
mound  builders  or  the  cave-dwellers  differed  widely 
from  those  of  existing  Ahts  or  Bushmen,  so  there  is 
nothing  unreasonable  in  believing,  that  the  earliest 


236  EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS. 

human  denizens  of  the  globe  were  endowed  with  the 
same  rudiments  of  feelings  that  prevail  among  them, 
and  that  these  should,  even  in  very  early  times,  have 
produced  very  similar  social  institutions.  That  Greeks 
and  Egyptians,  Chinese  and  Hindus,  had  legends 
ascribing  marriage  to  the  invention  of  a  particular 
legislator,  thereby  implying  there  was  a  time  when 
marriage  was  not,  no  more  proves  that  there  was  ever 
a  time  when  some  sort  of  marriage  was  unrecognised 
than  the  many  legends  of  the  origin  of  fire  prove  that 
mankind  were  ever  destitute  of  the  blessing  of  its, 
warmth.  A  minimum  of  reflection  on  the  subject 
would  produce  the  legend,  just  as  reflections  on  the 
world's  origin  have  produced  countless  legends  of  its 
creation,  of  a  time  when  it  too  was  nonexistent.  And 
it  will  be  found,  wherever  any  known  savage  tribe 
really  practises  no  wedding  customs,  that  the  fact  of 
the  marriage  is  distinctly  recognised,  either  by  pay- 
ment in  kind  or  labour  by  the  bridegroom  or  by 
some  symbolical  act  notifying  the  union  to  all  fellow- 
tribesmen.  The  Veddahs,  for  instance,  according  to 
Tennant,  used  no  marriage  rites  ;  but  another  writer 
mentions,  that  on  the  day  of  marriage  the  husband 
received  from  his  bride  a  cord  twisted  by  herself,  which 
he  had  to  wear  round  his  waist  till  his  death,  as  a 
symbol  of  the  lastingness  of  the  union  between  them. 
The  Kherias  of  India,  who  have  no  word  for  marriage 
in  their  language,  give  public  recognition  to  the  fact 


EARLY  WEDDING   CUSTOMS.  237 

by  certain  rites  and  festivities,  closely  analogous  to 
those  in  vogue  in  neighbouring  tribes.  The  Coroadas 
of  Brazil  have  no  marriage  solemnity,  but  the  suitor 
presents  the  bride's  parents  with  fruit  or  game,  as  a 
tacit  engagement  to  support  her  by  the  chase.  Such 
a  tacit  expression  of  willingness  and  ability  to  take 
good  care  of  his  wife  is  a  common  symbolical  act 
among  savages,  even  the  rudest ;  whilst  the  fact  that 
for  the  married  pair  henceforth  there  will  be  a  union 
of  life  and  fortune  is  indicated  by  many  a  wedding 
custom,  of  no  doubtful  meaning,  as  by  the  eating  of 
a  cake  together,  or  by  the  Dyak  custom  of  making 
the  married  couple  sit  together  on  two  bars  of  iron, 
'  to  intimate  the  wish  of  the  bystanders  that  blessings 
as  lasting  and  health  as  vigorous  as  that  metal  may 
attend  the  pair.' 

But  symbolical  acts  like  these — and  they  might 
be  multiplied  indefinitely — presuppose  an  advanced 
state  of  thought  and  feeling,  behind  which  we  cannot 
get  in  the  observation  of  any  existing  savage  tribes  ; 
and  since  they  are  common  wherever  the  pretence  of 
capture  is  common,  that  pretence  may  well  be  sym- 
bolical too ;  but  symbolical,  not  of  an  earlier  system 
of  marriage,  but  of  a  conventional  regard  for  good 
manners.  Wherever  the  pretence  of  capture  exists,  it 
exists  amid  conditions  of  life  so  far  removed  from 
what  might  naturally  be  conceived  as  the  most  archaic, 
that  it  is  quite  legitimate  to  attribute  the  decorous 


238  EARLY  WEDDING  CUSTOMS. 

reluctance  of  the  bride  and  the  resistance  of  her  rela- 
tions at  weddings  to  such  feelings  as  have  been  proved 
to  prevail  upon  such  occasions,  and  so  to  consider  the 
bride's  behaviour  as  something  quite  unconnected 
with  the  lawless  practice  of  wife-abduction,  a  practice 
which  undoubtedly  prevails  to  a  certain  extent  in  the 
savage  world  (chiefly  in  consequence  of  artificial  social 
arrangements),  which  may  have  prevailed  to  a  still 
greater  extent  when  men  lived  in  the  caves  of  PeVigord 
or  upon  former  continents,  but  which  it  is  incredible 
should  ever  have  survived  by  transmission  as  a  sym- 
bol, as  a  custom  worthy  of  religious  preservation. 


239 


VIII. 
THE  FAIRY-LORE  OF  SAVAGES. 

A  COMPARISON  of  some  of  the  fancies  of  the  rudest 
known  tribes  of  the  earth  concerning  the  nature  of 
the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars,  proves  abundantly 
not  only  that  the  demand  for  a  reason  for  things  is  a 
principle  operative  in  every  stage  of  human  develop- 
ment, but  that  the  primitive  explanation  of  things  is 
sought  in  the  occurrences  of  daily  experience  and 
given  in  terms  and  figures  originally  applied  to  ter- 
restrial objects.  From  a  philosophy  of  nature  of  so 
rude  a  type  and  so  humble  an  origin  spring  many  of 
those  marvellous  traditions,  which  in  after  times  rank 
as  the  mythology,  or  perhaps  serve  as  the  religion,  of 
the  people  among  whom  they  had  birth. 

To  begin  with  some  of  the  astro-mythological 
ideas  of  the  Australians.  Mr.  Stanbridge  mentions 
the  astonishment  with  which,  as  he  sat  by  his  camp 
fire,  he  listened  for  the  first  time  to  the  remarks  of 
two  Australian  natives  as  they  pointed  to  the  beauti- 


240  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

ful  constellations  of  Castor  and  Pollux,  of  the  Pleiades 
and  Orion.  These  men  belonged  to  a  race  who  had 
'  the  reputation  of  being  lowest  in  the  scale  of  man- 
kind,' who  were  '  cannibals  of  the  lowest  description,' 
and  '  who  had  no  name  for  numerals  above  two ; '  yet 
they  could  explain  the  wanderings  of  the  moon,  by 
the  story  that,  being  once  discovered  trying  to  per- 
suade the  wife  of  a  certain  star  in  Canis  Major  to 
elope  with  him,  he  was  beaten  and  put  to  flight  by 
the  angry  husband.  As  so  frequently  elsewhere, 
most  of  the  stars  were  bound  by  the  ties  of  human 
relationship,  being  wives,  brothers,  sisters,  or  mothers 
to  one  another.  The  stars  in  the  belt  of  Orion  were 
believed  to  be  a  group  of  young  men  dancing,  whilst 
the  Pleiades  were  girls  who  played  to  them  as  they 
danced.  Two  large  stars  in  the  fore  legs  of  Cen- 
taurus  were  two  brave  brothers  who  speared  Tchingal 
to  death,  and  the  east  stars  of  Crux  were  the  points 
of  the  spears  that  pierced  his  body.1 

Few  tribes  of  known  savages  appear  to  be  without 
conceptions  of  a  similar  nature.  The  Tasmanians, 
according  to  Bonwick,  were  no  exception  to  the 
connection  of  theology  with  astronomy.  To  them 
Capella  was  a  kangaroo  pursued  by  Castor  and 
Pollux,  whose  smoke  as  it  was  roasted  might  be  seen 
till  the  autumn.  The  Pleiades  were  maidens  who 

1   Transactions  of  Ethnological  Society t  i.  301-3. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  241 

courted  the  kangaroo  hunters  of  Orion  and  dug  up 
roots  for  their  suppers.  Two  other  stars  were  two 
black  men  who  of  old  appeared  suddenly  on  a  hill 
and  threw  fire  down  to  earth  for  the  use  of  its 
inhabitants ;  whilst  two  other  luminaries  were  two 
women  whom  a  sting-ray  had  killed  as  they  dived  for 
cray-fish,  but  whom  these  same  fire-bringers  restored 
to  life,  by  placing  stinging  ants  on  their  breasts  ;  then 
escorting  them  to  heaven,  after  they  had  first  killed 
the  sting-ray.1 

Bushman  star-lore  is  framed  in  exactly  the  same 
way,  the  planets  of  distant  solar  systems  sinking  into 
the  insignificance  of  daily  African  surroundings. 
What  is  the  moon  but  a  man  who,  having  incurred 
the  wrath  of  the  sun,  is  pierced  by  his  knife  till  he  is 
nearly  destroyed,  and  who,  having  implored  mercy, 
grows  from  the  small  piece  left  him,  till  he  is  again 
large  enough  for  the  stabbing  process  to  recommence  ? 
What  is  the  Milky  Way  but  some  wood  ashes  long 
ago  thrown  up  into  the  sky  by  a  girl,  that  her  people 
might  be  able  to  see  their  way  home  at  night  ? 
Other  stars  are  reduced  to  mortal  origin,  or  identified 
with  certain  lions,  tortoises,  or  clouds,  that  have  place 

1  Bonwick,  Daily  Life  of  the  Tasmanians,  188,  206.  The  author 
suggestively  calls  attention  to  the  similarity  of  this  legend  to  the  Hindu 
legend  of  Indra,  who  delivers  the  lovely  Apas  from  the  monster 
Vitra  in  the  dark  cavern  of  Ahi,  a  legend  which  has  been  taken  to 
mean  the  fire-god  who  destroys  the  dark  storm  cloud  that  chases  and 
maltreats  the  fleecy  maidens  of  the  sky. 

R 


242  THE  FAIRY -LORE   OP  SAVAGES. 

in  Bushman  mythology ;  nor  does  it  lie  beyond  their 
limits  of  belief  that  the  sun  should  once  have  been  seen 
sitting  by  the  wayside  as  he  travelled  on  earth,  and 
that  the  jackal's  back  is  black  to  this  day  because  he 
carried  that  burning  substance  on  his  back.1  This 
sun  they  believe  was  once  a  mortal  on  earth  who 
radiated  light  from  his  body,  but  only  for  a  short 
space  round  his  house ;  till  some  children  were  sent 
to  throw  him  as  he  slept  into  the  sky,  whence  he  has 
ever  since  shone  over  the  earth.2  These  children 
belonged  to  an  earlier  race  of  Bushmen  ;  and  it  is  an 
odd  coincidence  that  in  Victoria  as  in  South  Africa 
the  belief  about  the  sun  is  associated  with  the  tradition 
of  a  race  that  preceded  both  Bushmen  and  Austra- 
lians in  their  present  homes.  In  the  Australian  creed, 
the  earth  lay  in  darkness,  till  one  of  the  former  race 
threw  an  emu's  egg  into  space,  where  it  became  the 
sun.  That  former  race  was  translated  in  various 
forms  to  the  heavens,  where  they  made  all  the 
celestial  bodies,  and  where  they  continue  to  cause 
all  the  good  and  evil  that  happens  on  earth.  Such 
traditions  may  point  to  a  fact ;  for  both  Australians 
and  Bushmen  may  be  degenerate  from  a  better  social 
type  than  they  now  present ;  but  the  fact  that,  even 
if  degenerate,  they  should  preserve  such  tales  and 
fictions,  makes  it  not  inconceivable  that  such  tales 

1  Ble;'i,  Hottentot  Fables,  67.          2  Bleek,  Bushman  Folklore. 


THE  FAIRY- LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  243 

should  arise,  as  spontaneous  products  of  the  mind, 
among  tribes  that  seem  neither  to  have  lapsed  from 
a  higher  condition,  nor  ever  to  have  emerged  from 
their  primeval  state  of  barbarism. 

Of  the  Esquimaux,  Egede  observes  that  '  their 
notion  about  the  stars  is  that  some  of  them<  have 
been  men  and  others  different  sorts  of  animals  or 
fishes.'  *  Here  two  stars  are  two  persons  at  a  singing 
combat,  or  two  rival  women  taking  each  other  by  the 
hair ;  those  other  three  are  certain  Greenlanders  who, 
when  once  out  seal-catching,  failed  to  find  their  way 
home  again  and  were  taken  to  heaven.  It  is  true 
such  fancies,  taken  primarily  from  Cranz,  must  be 
received  with  the  reservation  that  he  makes,  namely, 
that  they  were  only  harboured  by  the  weaker  heads 
of  Greenland,  and  that  the  natives  had  art  enough 
to  play  off  on  the  Europeans  quite  as  marvellous 
stories  as  any  they  received.2  But  the  possible  reality 
of  such  belief  is  vouched  for  by  other  testimony  from 
all  parts  of  the  globe,  of  which  two  instances,  taken 
from  the  Hervey  Islanders  and  the  Thlinkeet  Indians, 
will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  general  character.  Accord- 
ing to  the  former,  a  twin  boy  and  girl  were  badly 
treated  by  their  mother  •  so  they  left  their  home  and 
leapt  into  the  sky,  whither  they  were  also  followed  by 
their  parents,  and  where  all  four  may  still  be  seen 

1  Egede,  209.  *  Cranz,  i.  213. 


244  THE  FAIRY- LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

shining  ;  '  brother  and  dearly-loved  sister,  still  linked 
together,  pursue  their  never-ceasing  flight,  resolved 
never  again  to  meet  their  justly-enraged  parents.' ' 
The  Thlinkeet  Indians  ascribe  to  a  being  called  Yehl 
the  liberation  of  the  world  from  its  pristine  darkness  ; 
for,  amid  the  many  conflicting  stories  told  of  him,  it 
is  agreed  that  he  it  was  who  obtained  light  for  men 
at  a  time  when  '  sun,  moon,  and  stars  were  kept  by  a 
rich  chief  in  separate  boxes  which  he  allowed  no  one 
to  touch.'  Yehl,  having  become  grandson  to  this 
chief,  cried  one  day  so  much  for  these  boxes  that  his 
grandfather  let  him  have  one.  '  He  opened  it,  and 
lo  !  there  were  stars  in  the  sky.'  The  grandparent 
was  next  cheated  out  of  the  moon  in  the  same  way  ; 
but  to  get  the  sunbox  Yehl  had  to  refuse  food  and 
become  really  ill,  and  then  its  owner  only  parted  with 
it  on  condition  that  it  should  not  be  opened.  The 
prohibition,  however,  was  unheeded.  Yehl  turned  into 
a  raven,  flew  off  with  the  box,  and  blessed  mankind 
with  the  light  of  the  sun.2 

From  these  samples  of  the  fairy  tales  of  savages, 
it  is  clear  that,  in  addition  to  the  myths  which  arise 
from  forgotten  etymologies,  there  are  many  others 
which  are  not  formed  at  all  by  this  process  of  gradual 
forgetfulness,  but  spring  directly  from  the  use  of  the 
intellect  and  the  imagination,  in  obedience  to  the  im- 

1  Gill,  40-2.  2  Ball,  Alaska. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  245 

pulse  to  find '  a  reason  for  everything.  To  observe 
peculiarities  in  nature  is  the  beginning  of  science  ;  to 
account  for  them  in  any  way  is  science  itself,  true  or 
false.  The  science  of  savages  is  not  limited  to  the 
skies,  but  is  directed  to  everything  that  calls  for  notice 
on  earth  ;  nor  in  the  stories  invented  by  them  to 
answer  the  various  problems  of  existence,  are  they  a 
whit  behind  the  traditions  of  European  folk-lore  on 
similar  subjects,  their  explanations  of  natural  pecu- 
liarities disclosing  quite  as  vivid  imaginative  powers 
as  the  stories  of  the  white  race  concerning  birds  or 
beasts. 

Let  us  take,  for  instance,  as  a  parallel  to  the 
German  reason  for  the  owl  flying  in  solitude  by  night 
(namely,  that  when  set  to  watch  the  wren,  imprisoned 
in  a  mousehole,  he  fell  asleep,  and  was  so  ashamed  at 
letting  him  thus  escape  that  he  has  never  since  dared 
show  himself  by  day),  the  story  of  the  rude  Ahts, 
made  to  account  for  the  melancholy  note  of  the  loon 
as  it  is  heard  flying  about  the  wild  lakes  of  Vancou- 
ver's Island  ;  and  as  a  good  instance  of  the  resem- 
blance in  construction  of  plot  often  found  in  very 
distant  regions,  let  us  place  side  by  side  with  it  a  story 
of  the  Basutos  in  the  south  of  Africa  :— 

THE  AHT  STORY.  THE  BASUTO  STORY. 

Two  fishermen  went  one  day  in  Two  brothers,  having  gone  in 

two  canoes  to  catch  halibut.  But  different  directions  to  make  their 
while  one  of  them  caught  many,  fortunes,  met  again,  after  sundry 


246 


THE   FAIRY-LORE    OF  SAVAGES. 


the  other  caught  none.  So  the 
latter,  angered  by  the  taunts  of  his 
more  fortunate  but  physically 
weaker  companion,  bethought  him- 
self how  he  might  take  all  his  fish 
from  him  by  force,  and  cause  him  to 
return  home  fishless  and  ashamed. 
Suddenly,  whilst  his  friend  was 
pulling  up  a  fish,  he  knocked 
him  on  the  head  with  the  wooden 
club  he  used  for  killing  halibut, 
and,  to  prevent  the  tale  ever  being 
told,  cut  out  his  companion's 
tongue,  and  took  the  fish  home  to 
his  own  wife.  When  the  tongue- 
less  man  arrived  at  the  village, 
and  his  friends  came  to  enquire  of 
his  sport,  he  could  only  answer  by 
a  noise  resembling  the  note  of  the 
loon.  '  The  great  spirit,  Quaw- 
teaht,  was  so  angry  at  all  this,  that 
he  changed  the  injured  Indian  into 
a  loon,  and  the  other  into  a  crow  ; 
Snd  the  loon's  plaintive  cry  now 
is  the  voice  of  the  fisherman  try- 
ing to  make  himself  understood. '' 


adventures,  the  elder  enriched  by 
a  pack  of  dogs,  the  younger  by  a 
large    number    of    cows.       The 
younger    offered    his    brother  as 
many  of  these  cows  as  he  pleased, 
with   the    exception  of  a  certain 
white  one.      This  he  would  not 
part  with  ;  so  as  they  went  home, 
and    the    younger     brother    was 
drinking  from  a  pool,  Macilo,  the 
elder,   seized    his    brother's  head 
and  held  it  under  the  water  till 
he  was  dead.    Then  he  buried  the 
body,  and  covered  it  with  a  stone, 
and  proceeded  to  drive  back  the 
whole  flock  as  his  own.     He  had 
not,  however,  gone  far,  before  a 
small  bird    perched  itself  on  the 
horn  of  the  white  cow  and   ex- 
claimed :  '  Macilo  has  killed  Ma- 
ciloniane  for  the  sake  of  the  white 
cow  he  coveted.'  Twicedid  Macilo 
kill  the  bird  with  a  stone,  but  each 
time  it  reappeared  and  uttered  the 
same  words.     So  the  third  time 
he  killed  it  he  burnt  it,  and  threw 
its  ashes  to    the   winds.      Then 
proudly  he  entered  his  village,  and 
when   they   all  enquired    for   his 
brother,    he  said    that   they  had 
taken  different  roads,  and  that  he 
was  ignorant  where  he  was.     The 
white  cow  was   greatly  admired, 
bnt  suddenly  a  small  bird  perched 
itself  on  its  horns  and  exclaimed  : 
'  Macilo   has  killed    Maciloniane 
for  the  sake  of  the  white  cow  he 
coveted.'     Thus,   through  a  bird 


1  Sproat,  p.  182. 


THE  FAIRY -LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  247 

into  which  the  heart  of  the  mur- 
dered man  had  been  transformed, 
did  the  truth  become  known,  and 
everyone  departed  with  horror  from 
the  presence  of  the  murderer.  * 

European  folk-lore  accounts  for  the  redness  of  the 
robin's  breast,  either  by  the  theory  that  he  extracted 
a  thorn  from  the  thorn-crown  of  Christ,  or  by  the 
theory  that  he  daily  bears  a  drop  of  water  to  quench 
the  flames  of  hell.  For  either  reason  he  might  be 
justly  called  the  friend  of  man ;  but  for  the  bird's  friend- 
liness the  Chippewya  Indians  give  a  more  poetical 
explanation  than  either  of  the  above.  There  was  once, 
they  say,  a  hunter  so  ambitious  that  his  only  son 
should  signalise  himself  by  endurance,  when  he  came 
to  the  time  of  life  to  undergo  the  fast  preparatory  to 
his  choosing  his  guardian  spirit,  that  after  the  lad  had 
fasted  for  eight  days,  his  father  still  pressed  him  to 
persevere.  But  next  day,  when  the  father  entered  the 
hut,  his  son  had  paid  the  penalty  of  violated  nature, 
and  in  the  form  of  a  robin  had  just  flown  to  the  top 
of  the  lodge.  There,  before  he  flew  away  to  the  woods, 
he  entreated  his  father  not  to  mourn  his  transforma- 
tion. '  I  shall  be  happier,'  he  said,  '  in  my  present 
state  than  I  could  have  been  as  a  man.  I  shall 
always  be  the  friend  of  men  and  keep  near  their 
dwellings  ;  I  could  not  gratify  your  pride  as  a  warrior, 

1  Casalis,  Les  Basutos.     With  this  story  Grimm  compares  a  Ger- 
man one,  Kinder  und  PIausmdrchcnt  i.  172. 


248  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

but  I  will  cheer  you  by  my  songs.  ...  I  am  now 
free  from  cares  and  pains,  my  food  is  furnished  by 
the  fields  and  mountains,  and  my  path  is  in  the 
bright  air.' l 

Not  less  poetical  is  the  Hervey  Islanders'  account 
of  the  origin  of  some  peculiarities  among  fishes,  and 
notably  of  the  well-known  conformation  of  the  head 
of  the  common  sole.  They  relate  how  Ina,  leaving 
the  house  of  her  rich  parents  because  she  had  been 
beaten  and  scolded  for  suffering  the  arch-thief,  Nyana, 
to  steal  certain  treasures  left  in  her  charge,  resolved  to 
make  her  way  to  the  sea  beach,  and  from  thence  to 
the  Sacred  Isle  that  lay  across  the  sea  at  the  place 
where  the  sun  set.  Arrived  at  the  shore,  she  first 
asked  the  small  fish,  the  avini,  to  bear  her  across  the 
sea  ;  but  the  avini,  unable  to  support  her  weight,  soon 
let  her  fall  into  the  water,  for  which  Ina  in  her  anger 
struck  it  repeatedly  with  her  foot,  thereby  causing 
those  beautiful  stripes  on  its  sides  which  are  called  to 
this  day  '  Ina's  tattooing.'  Trying  next  the  paoro, 
and  meeting  with  the  same  mischance,  she  caused  it 
in  the  same  way  to  bear  ever  after  those  blue  marks 
which  are  now  its  glory ;  and  it  is  said  to  be  histori- 
cally true  that  tattooing  on  that  island  '  was  simply 
an  imitation  of  the  stripes  on  the  avini  and  thepaoro.' 
Then  the  api,  a  white  fish,  incurring  the  same  dis- 

1  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  ii.  229-30. 


THE  FAIRY- LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  249 

pleasure,  became  at  once  and  for  ever  of  an  intensely 
black  hue.  The  sole,  indeed,  carried  Ina  farther  than 
the  others,  but  no  farther  than  the  breakers  by  the 
reef  ;  and  Ina,  now  wild  with  rage,  stamped  with  such 
fury  on  its  head  that  its  underneath  eye  was  removed 
to  the  upper  side,  and  thus  it  was  condemned  ever 
afterwards  to  swim  flatwise,  unlike  other  fish,  because 
one  side  of  its  face  had  no  eye.  How  Ina  then  caused 
a  protuberance  on  the  forehead  of  all  sharks,  known 
to  this  day  as  Ina's  bump,  by  cracking  a  cocoa-nut 
she  wished  to  drink  out  of  on  the  forehead  of  a  shark 
that  bore  her,  how  the  shark  then  left  her,  and  how 
she  finally  reached  the  Sacred  Isle  on  the  back  of  the 
king  of  sharks,  and  became  the  wife  of  Timirau,  the 
king  of  all  fish,  may  be  read  in  further  detail  in  Mr. 
Gill's  interesting  collection  of  Myths  and  Songs  from 
the  South  Pacific.1 

The  necessity  for  a  reason  for  everything,  exem- 
plified in  these  traditions,  exercises  its  influence  on 
mythology  itself,  reasons  being  invented  for  inexplic- 
able customs  or  beliefs  just  as  they  are  for  strange 
phenomena  in  nature.  The  custom,  for  instance,  of 
hunting  a  wren  to  death  once  a  year,  which  has  been 
observed  in  Ireland,  the  isle  of  Man,  and  the  South 
of  France,  has  for  its  general  explanation  a  belief  that 
the  wren  is  a  fairy  who,  after  having  decoyed  many 

1  Gill,  88-98. 


250  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

men  to  meet  their  deaths  in  the  sea,  took  the  form  of 
a  wren  to  escape  the  plot  laid  for  her  by  a  certain 
knight-errant.  But  the  Irish  have  found  quite  another 
reason  for  the  custom,  having  invented  the  story,  that 
on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  the  Boyne  the  Irish  had 
stolen  up  to  King  William's  sleeping  camp  and  were 
on  the  point  of  putting  an  end  to  the  heretics,  when  a 
wren  hopped  upon  the  drum  of  a  Protestant  drummer, 
and  by  thus  waking  him  caused  their  defeat ;  a  defeat 
which  they  avenge  on  every  anniversary  of  the  day  by 
the  persecution  of  that  unhappy  bird.1 

The  story  of  the  wren  is  well  known  ;  how,  when 
the  birds  were  competing  for  the  kingship  by  the  test 
of  the  greatest  height  attained  in  flying,  the  wren  hid 
in  the  eagle's  feathers,  and,  when  the  eagle  had  flown 
far  beyond  the  other  birds,  darted  himself  yet  a  little 
above  it.  It  is  said  that  the  first  appearance  of  this 
story  is  in  a  collection  of  beast-fables,  composed  by  a 
rabbi  in  the  I3th  century.2  But  the  resemblance 
between  the  wren-story  as  it  is  told  in  Germany  or 
Ireland,  and  a  story  of  a  linnet  as  told  by  the  Odjibwas 
of  North  America,  is  so  striking  a  testimony  of  the 
way  in  which  closely  similar  tales  are  framed  in- 
dependently, that  the  two  stories  are  worth  compar- 
ing. 

1  Mrs.  Cookson,  Legends  of  the  Manx,  27-30. 
z  Wolf,  Zeitschrift  fiir  deutsche  Mythologie,  i.  2. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 


251 


THE  ODJIBWA  STORY. 

'  The  birds  met  together  one 
day  to  try  which  could  fly  the 
highest.  Some  flew  up  very  swift, 
but  soon  got  tired,  and  were 
passed  by  others  of  stronger  wing. 
But  the  eagle  went  up  beyond 
them  all,  and  was  ready  to  claim 
the  victory,  when  the  grey  linnet, 
a  very  small  bird,  flew  from  the 
eagle's  back,  where  it  had  perched 
unperceived,  and  being  fresh  and 
unexhausted,  succeeded  in  going 
the  highest.  When  the  birds  came 
down  and  met  in  council  to  award 
the  prize,  it  was  given  to  the  eagle, 
because  that  bird  had  not  only 
gone  up  nearer  to  the  sun  than 
any  of  the  larger  birds,  but  it  had 
carried  the  linnet  on  its  back. ' 

For  this  reason  the  eagle's 
feathers  became  the  most  honour- 
able marks  of  distinction  a  man 
could  bear. ' 


THE  IRISH  STORY. 

'  The  birds  all  met  together 
one  day,  and  settled  among  them- 
selves that  whichever  of  them 
could  fly  highest  was  to  be  the 
king  of  all.  Well,  just  as  they 
were  on  the  hinges  of  being  off", 
what  does  the  little  rogue  of  a 
wren  do,  but  hop  up  and  perch 
himself  unbeknown  on  the  eagle's 
tail.  So  they  flew  and  flew  ever  so 
high,  till  the  eagle  was  miles  above 
all  the  rest,  and  could  not  fly 
another  stroke,  he  was  so  tired. 
"Then,"  says  he,  "I'm  king  of 
the  birds.  ..."  "You  lie,"  says 
the  wren,  darting  up  a  perch  and 
a  half  above  the  big  fellow.  Well, 
the  eagle  was  so  mad  to  think  how 
he  was  done,  that  when  the  wren 
was  coming  down,  he  gave  him 
a  stroke  of  his  wing,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  the  wren  was 
never  able  to  fly  further  than  a 
hawthorn  bush. ' 2 


It  is  impossible  to  assign  limits  either  to  the  vita- 
lity or  to  the  range  of  a  story.  If  the  commerce 
which  has  ever  prevailed  between  the  different  tribes 
of  the  world,  as  it  prevails  to  this  day,  either  by  con- 
quest or  by  barter,  has  caused  so  wide  a  dispersion  of 
the  races  and  products  of  the  earth,  the  wonder  would 

1  Algic  Researches,  ii.  216. 

2  Kelly,  Indo-European   Traditions,  78.     See  the  German  version 
of  the  tale  in  Grimm's  Hausmarchcn,  ii.  394. 


252  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

rather  be  if  the  products  of  men's  thoughts  and  fancies 
had  not  prevailed  so  widely,  had  not  taken  so  deep 
root  in  man's  memory,  seeing  that  they  cost  nothing 
either  to  carry  or  to  keep.  For  many  stories  there- 
fore of  wide  range,  agreeing  in  such  minute  particulars 
as  to  render  difficult  the  theory  of  their  independent 
origin,  the  mystery  of  their  resemblance  is  amply 
solved  by  the  theory  of  their  gradual  dispersion, 
without  their  proving  anything  as  to  the  common 
origin  of  those  who  tell  them.  The  story,  for  instance, 
of  Faithful  John,  the  central  idea  of  which  is,  that  a 
friend  can  only  apprise  some  one  of  a  danger  he 
will  incur  on  his  wedding  night,  by  himself  incurring 
suspicion  and  being  turned  into  stone,  is  told  with 
little  variation  in  Bohemia,  Greece,  Italy,  and  Spain  ; 
and  the  discovery  of  the  leading  thought  in  a  story  in 
India  makes  it  possible  that  it  was  there  originated.1 
In  Polynesia,  again,  the  story  of  stopping  the  motion 
of  the  sun  is  widely  spread ;  in  New  Zealand,  Maui 
makes  ropes  of  flax,  goes  with  his  brothers  to  the 
point  where  the  sun  rises,  hides  from  it  by  day,  and 
when  it  rises  next  day  succeeds  in  his  purpose  before 
letting  it  go  further.  In  Tahiti,  Maui  is  a  priest,  or 
chief  of  olden  time,  who  builds  a  marae  which  must 
be  finished  by  the  evening,  and  who  therefore  seizes 
the  sun  by  its  rays  and  binds  him  to  a  tree  till  his 

1  KQhler,  Weimatische  Beilrdge  zur  Lileratiir,  Jan.  1865. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  253 

work  is  finished.  In  Hawaii  Maui  stops  the  sun  till 
evening,  because  his  wife  has  to  finish  a  certain  dress 
by  twilight.  In  Samoa,  Maui  appears  as  Itu,  a  man 
who  is  anxious  to  build  a  house  of  great  stones,  but 
is  unable  to  do  so  because  the  sun  goes  too  fast  ;  he 
therefore  takes  a  boat  and  lays  nets  in  the  sun's  path, 
but  as  these  are  broken  through,  he  makes  a  noose, 
catches  the  sun,  and  only  lets  it  free  when  his  house 
is  finished.1  Obviously,  these  stories  are  all  related, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  they  spread  from 
any  one  place  to  the  others,  or  whether  they  are 
remnants,  retained  in  altered  form,  from  the  primitive 
mythology  of  a  common  Polynesian  home.  It  is, 
however,  worthy  of  notice  that  in  Wallachian  fairy 
lore  also  a  cow  pushes  back  the  sun  to  the  hour  of 
mid-day,  to  enable  a  youth  who  had  fallen  asleep  to 
accomplish  his  task,2  and  that  the  idea  of  catching 
the  sun  is  not  unknown  to  the  mythology  of  America. 
There  is,  however,  a  large  class  of  stories  which 
arise  independently,  and  owe  their  remarkable  family 
likeness  neither  to  a  common  descent  nor  to  importa- 
tion, but  to  the  natural  promptings  of  the  imagination. 
Thus,  the  idea  of  a  tree  so  high  that  it  reaches  the 
heavens,  and  consequently  of  the  heavens  as  thereby 
attainable,  naturally  produces  such  a  story  as  Jack 
and  the  Beanstalk,  a  story  which  is  said  to  be  found 

1  Schirren,  Wandersagen  der  Neuseddnder,  31,  37-39. 

2  Grimm,  Hausmatchen,  \.  Pref.  53. 


254  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

all  over  the  world,  but  the  versions  of  which  agree  in 
no  other  single  point  than  in  the  admission  to  the  sky 
by  dint  of  climbing.1  In  the  same  way  many  of  the 
ideas  common  to  the  Indo-European  nations,  and  so 
often  explained  as  originally  derived  from  the  fanci- 
ful meteorology  of  the  primitive  Aryans,  find  startling 
analogues  outside  the  Aryan  family,  where  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  them  anything  more  than  the 
direct  offspring  of  the  dreamer  or  the  story-teller. 
If  the  constancy  of  Penelope  to  Ulysses,  tormented 
by  her  suitors,  is  simply  that  of  the  evening  light, 
assailed  by  the  powers  of  darkness,  till  the  return  of 
her  husband  the  sun  in  the  morning,2  shall  we  apply 
the  same  interpretation  to  the  story  of  the  wife  of  the 
Red  Swan,  of  the  Odjibwas,  who,  when  he  returns 
from  the  discovery  of  his  magic  arrows  from  the 
abode  of  the  departed  spirits,  finds  that  his  two 
brothers  have  been  quarrelling  for  the  possession  of 
his  wife,  but  been  quarrelling  in  vain  ? 3  If  the  legend 
of  Cadmus  recovering  Europa,  after  she  has  been 
carried  away  by  the  white  bull,  the  spotless  cloud, 
means  that  'the  sun  must  journey  westward  until  he 
sees  again  the  beautiful  tints  which  greeted  his  eyes 
in  the  morning/ 4  shall  we  say  the  same  of  a  story 

1  See  the  different  versions  in  Mr.  Tylor's  Early  History  of  Man- 
kind, 344. 

2  Cox,  Aryan  Mythology,  ii.  173. 

*  Algu  Researches,  ii.  1-33.  *  Aryan  Mythology,  ii.  85. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  255 

current  in  North  America,  to  the  effect  that  a  man  once 
had  a  beautiful  daughter  whom  he  forbade  to  leave  the 
lodge  lest  she  should  be  carried  off  by  the  king  of  the 
buffaloes ;  and  that  as  she  sat,  notwithstanding,  out- 
side the  house,  combing  her  hair,  '  all  of  a  sudden  the 
king  of  the  buffaloes  came  dashing  on,  with  his  herd 
of  followers,  and  taking  her  between  his  horns,  away 
he  cantered  over  plains,  plunged  into  a  river  which 
bounded  his  land,  and  carried  her  safely  to  his  lodge 
on  the  other  side,'  whence  she  was  finally  recovered 
by  her  father  ?  l 

Again,  in  Hindu  mythology,  Urvasi  came  down 
from  heaven  and  became  the  wife  of  the  son  of  Budha, 
only  on  condition  that  two  pet  rams  should  never 
be  taken  from  her  bedside  and  that  she  should  never 
behold  her  lord  undressed.  The  immortals,  however, 
wishing  Urvasi  back  in  heaven,  contrived  to  steal  the 
rams ;  and  as  the  king  pursued  the  robbers  with  his 
sword  in  the  dark,  the  lightning  revealed  his  person, 
the  compact  was  broken,  and  Urvasi  disappeared.2 
This  same  story  is  found  in  different  forms  among 
many  people  of  Aryan  and  Turanian  descent,  the 
central  idea  being  that  of  a  man  marrying  someone 
of  aerial  or  aquatic  origin,  and  living  happily  with 
her  till  he  breaks  the  condition  on  which  her  residence 
with  him  depends.  Thus  there  is  the  story  of  Ray- 

1  Algic  Researches,  ii.  34.         2  Wilson,  Vishnu  Purana,  394-5. 


256  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

mond  of  Toulouse,  who  chances  in  the  hunt  upon  the 
beautiful  Melusina  at  a  fountain  and  lives  with  her 
happily  till  he  discovers  her  fish-nature  and  she 
vanishes  ;  but  exactly  parallel  stories  come  no  less 
from  Borneo,  the  Celebes,  or  North  America  than  from 
Ireland  or  Germany ;  for  which  reason  it  seems  suffi- 
cient to  receive  them  simply  as  they  stand,  as  fairy 
tales  natural  to  every  tribe  of  mankind  that  has  a 
fixed  belief  in  supernatural  beings,  rather  than  to 
explain  these  wonderful  wives  as  the  '  bright  fleecy 
clouds  of  early  morning,  which  vanish  as  the  splendour 
of  the  sun  is  unveiled.' l  Let  us  compare  the  story 
as  it  is  told  in  America  and  Bornoese  tradition. 

THE  BORNOESE  STORY.  THE  AMERICAN  STORY. 

A  certain  Bornoese,  when  far  Wampee,  a  great  hunter,  once 

from  home,  once  climbed  a  tree  came  to  a  strange  prairie,  where 

to  rest,  and  whilst  there  '  was  at-  he  heard  faint  sounds  of  music, 

traded    by    the    most    ravishing  and  looking  up  saw  a  speck  in  the 

music,  which  ever  and  anon  came  sky,  which  proved   itself  to  be  a 

nearer  and  nearer,  until  it  seem-  basket    containing    twelve    most 

ingly  approached  the  very  roots  of  beautiful  maidens,  who,  on  reach- 

the   tree,    when   a   pure   well    of  ing  the  earth,  forthwith  set  them- 

water  burst  out,  at  the  bottom  of  selves  to  dance.    He  tried  to  catch 

which  were  seven  beautiful  virgins.  the  youngest,   but   in  vain  ;  ulti- 

Ravished  at  the  sight,  and  deter-  mately  he  succeeded  by  assuming 

mined  to  make  one  of  them  his  the  disguise  of  a  mouse.     He  was 

son's  wife,  he  made  a  lasso  of  his  very  attentive    to    his  new  wife, 

rattan,  and  drew  her  up.'     One  who  was  really  a  daughter  of  one 

day,  however,  her  husband  hit  her  of  the  stars,  but   she  wished  to 


1  Fiske,  Myths  and  Myth  Makers,  97,  and  Cox,  Aryan  Mythology, 
ii.  282. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  257 

in  anger,  and  she  was  taken  up  to      return  home,  so  she  made  a  wicker 
the  sky.  *  basket  secretly,  and  by  help  of  a 

charm  she  remembered,  ascended 

to  her  father.2 

It  has  been  imagined  that  all  the  fairy  tales  of  the 
world  may  be  reduced  to  certain  fundamental  story 
roots ;  but  these  story  roots  we  should  look  for  not 
in  the  clouds,  but  upon  the  earth,  not  in  the  various 
aspects  of  nature,  but  in  the  daily  occurrences  and 
surroundings  of  savage  life.  The  uniformity  which 
appears  in  so  many  of  the  myths  or  fairy  tales  of  the 
world  would  thus  simply  arise  from  a  uniformity  of  the 
experiences  of  existence.  The  evidence  concerning 
savage  astro-mythology  is  conclusive,  that  nothing  is 
conceived  of  the  heavenly  bodies  that  has  not  its 
prototype  on  earth  ;  that  the  skies  do  but  mirror  the 
events  or  objects  of  earth,  where  the  memorable  inci- 
dents of  the  chase  or  the  battle  are  told  of  the  stars  : 
nor  is  it  strange  if  in  a  few  years  such  tales  should 
have  so  gained  in  the  telling,  that  it  is  often  im- 
possible to  separate  the  fact  from  the  fiction,  or  to 
distinguish  a  crude  supposition  from  the  creation  of 
a  fanciful  myth. 

For  although  it  is  difficult  to  lay  down  the 
boundaries  between  the  language  of  metaphor  and  the 
language  of  fact,  inasmuch  as  what  is  faith  to  one  man 
is  often  but  fancy  to  another,  there  is  reason  to  believe 

1  Transactions  of  Ethnological  Society,  ii.  27. 

2  Algic  Researches,  i.  67. 

S 


258  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

that  savages  really  do  very  often  confuse  celestial  with 
terrestrial  phenomena,  that,  for  instance,  the  Zulus, 
when  they  speak  of  the  stars  as  the  children  of  the 
sky  and  of  the  sun  as  their  father,  are  expressing 
rather  a  real  belief  than  a  poetical  fancy,  and  that  the 
conception  of  the  sun  and  moon  as  physically  related 
is  an  actual  belief  quite  as  much  as  a  merely  figurative 
explanation.  If  this  be  true,  a  large  part  of  mytho- 
logy must  be  regarded  not  as  a  poetical  explanation 
of  things,  suggested  by  the  grammatical  form  of  words 
or  by  roots  that  lend  similar  names  to  the  most  di- 
verse conceptions,  but  as  the  direct  effect  of  primitive 
thought  in  its  application  to  the  phenomena  of  nature. 
It  is  more  likely  that  the  early  thoughts  of  men 
should  have  framed  their  language  than  that  the  form 
of  their  language  should  have  preceded  their  form  of 
thought.  And  if  it  be  shown  (by  those  who  hold  that 
the  personification  of  impersonal  things  is  consequent 
on  the  grammatical  structure  of  a  language)  that  the 
Kafirs  and  other  tribes  of  South  Africa,  whose  lan- 
guage does  not  denote  sex,  are  almost  destitute  of 
myths  and  fables,  whilst  tribes  who  employ  a  sex- 
denoting  language  have  many,1  it  is  noticeable  that 
such  personification  has  been  shown  to  exist  among 
the  natives  of  Australia,  between  the  different  dialects 
of  whose  language  it  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the 

1  Bleek,  Hottentot  Fables,  Pref.  xxv. 


THE   FAIRY-LORE    OF  SAVAGES.  259 

points  of  resemblance,  that  they  recognised  no  dis- 
tinctions of  gender.1 

A  story  of  the  Ottawa  Indians  (by  internal 
evidence  posterior  in  date  to  their  acquaintance  with 
guns  and  ships)  may  be  taken  as  a  sample  of  savage 
traditions,  which  prove  that  the  convertibility  of  man- 
kind with  sun,  moon,  or  stars,  is  as  natural  a  belief  to 
a  savage,  as  that  his  next-door  neighbour  may  turn 
at  pleasure  into  a  wolf  or  a  snake.  Six  young  men 
finding  themselves  on  a  hill-top  in  close  proximity  to 
the  sun,  resolved  to  travel  to  it.  Two  of  them  finally 
reached  a  beautiful  plain,  lighted  by  the  moon,  which, 
as  they  advanced,  appeared  as  an  aged  woman  with 
a  white  face,  who  spoke  to  them  and  promised  to  con- 
duct them  to  her  brother,  then  absent  on  his  daily 
course  through  the  sky.  This  woman  '  they  knew 
from  her  first  appearance'  to  be  the  moon.  When 
she  introduced  them  to  her  brother,  '  the  sun  motioned 
them  with  his  hand  to  follow  him,'  and  they  accom- 
panied him  with  some  difficulty  till  they  were  restored 
safe  and  sound  to  the  earth.2  So  Sir  G.  Grey,  col- 
lecting native  legends  concerning  a  cave  in  Aus- 
tralia, found  that  the  only  point  of  agreement  was 
'  that  originally  the  moon  who  was  a  man  had  lived 
there.' 3 

But,  except  on  the  assumption  that  savages  are 

1  Bonwick,  Daily  Life  of  the  Tasmanians,  148. 

*  Algic  Rtsearches,  ii.  40.  '  Travels  in  Australia,  \.  261. 

S   2 


26o  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

idiots,  it  is  impossible  that  such  legends  should  not  only 
obtain  currency,  but  enjoy  the  vitality  of  traditions, 
unless  they  conform  to  certain  canons  of  belief,  unless 
they  contain  nothing  inherently  incredible.  A  fairy 
tale  pleases  a  child,  not  because  it  is  known  to  be  im- 
possible, but  because  it  carries  the  mind  further  afield 
than  actual  experience  does  into  the  realms  of  the 
possible  ;  and  a  tale  understood  to  be  impossible 
would  be  as  insipid  to  a  savage  as  it  would  be  to  a 
child.  Schoolcraft,  in  reference  to  Indian  popular 
tales,  speaks  of  the '  belief  of  the  narrators  and  listeners 
in  every  wild  and  improbable  thing  told  ; '  and  says, 
'  Nothing  is  too  capacious  for  Indian  belief.' r  If,  as 
their  stories  abundantly  show,  they  feel  no  difficulty  in 
conceiving  the  instantaneous  transformation  of  men  not 
merely  into  something  living,  but  into  stones  or  stumps, 
the  fact  ceases  to  be  strange,  that  in  Indian  faith 
'  many  of  the  planets  are  transformed  adventurers.' 2 
What,  then,  more  natural  than  that  all  over  the  world 
the  deeds  of  great  tribesmen  should  be  transferred  to 
the  skies,  and,  under  the  action  of  uniform  laws  of 
fancy,  should  in  time  become  so  overgrown  with 
fiction  as  to  pass  into  the  domain  of  the  purest  my- 
thology, till  at  last  they  appear  as  mere  figurative 
expressions  of  the  daily  life  of  nature,  of  the  struggle 

1  Schoolcraft,  Algic  Researches,  i.  41. 

2  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  v.  409. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  261 

between  the  day  and  the  night,  of  the  dispersion  of  the 
clouds  by  the  sun  ? 

The  condition  of  things  which  makes  such  concep- 
tions of  the  heavens  the  natural  outcome  of  primitive 
speculation  may  perhaps,  to  a  certain  extent,  be  re- 
covered by  observation  of  the  laws  conditioning  the 
actually  existent  thoughts  of  the  savage  world. 

The  first  entrance  into  Wonderland  lies  through 
Dreamland.  Schoolcraft's  testimony  that  '  a  dream 
or  a  fact  is  alike  potent  in  the  Indian  mind '  accords 
with  much  other  evidence  to  the  effect  that,  with 
savages,  the  sensations  of  the  sleeping  or  waking  life 
are  equally  real  or  but  vaguely  distinguished.  A 
native  of  Zululand  will  leave  his  work  and  travel  to 
his  home,  perhaps  a  hundred  miles  away,  to  test  the 
truth  of  a  dream,1  and  so  great  is  the  importance  the 
Zulus  attach  to  such  monitions,  that  '  he  who  dreams 
is  the  great  man  of  the  village  ; '  whilst  the  gift  to  them 
of '  sight  by  night  in  dreams  '  is  ascribed  to  their  first 
ancestor,  the  great  Unkulunkulu.2  But  how  far  sur- 
passing even  the  normal  experiences  of  sleep  must  be 
the  dreams  of  men  in  the  hunting  or  nomad  state, 
the  law  of  whose  lives  is  either  a  want  or  an  excess  of 
food !  What  richer  fund  for  story-material  can  be 
imagined  than  the  dreams  of  a  savage,  or  what  more 
likely  to  introduce  him  to  the  mysteries  of  romance 

1  D.  Leslie,  Among  the  Zulus,  1 68. 

2  Callaway,  Religious  System  of  the  Amazulu,  Part  i.  5. 


262  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

than  recollections  of  those  sudden  transformations  or 
those  weird  images,  which  have  haunted  the  repose  of 
his  slumbering  hours  ?  And  into  what  strange  lands 
of  beauty  and  plenty,  into  what  secrets  of  the  skies, 
would  not  the  flights  of  his  sleep  give  him  an  insight ! 
In  all  fairy  tales  and  all  mythology  a  remarkable  con- 
formity to  the  deranged  ideas  of  sleep  does  thus  occur ; 
and  especially  do  the  stories  of  the  lower  races,  as  for 
instance  those  of  Schoolcraft's  '  Algic  Researches,' 
read  far  more  like  the  recollections  of  bad  dreams 
than  like  the  worn  ideas  of  a  once  pure  religion,  or 
of  a  poetical  interpretation  of  nature.  The  most 
beautiful  of  the  Indian  legends,  that  of  the  origin  of 
Indian  corn,  was  in  native  tradition  actually  referred 
to  a  dream,  and  to  a  dream  purposely  resorted  to,  to 
gain  a  clearer  insight  into  the  mysteries  of  nature.1 
And  as  dreams  do  but  deal  with  the  incidents  of  the 
waking  life,  exaggerating  them  and  contorting  them, 
but  never  passing  beyond  them,  may  not  the  some- 
what uniform  incidents  of  savage  life,  whether  of 
hunting,  fishing,  fighting,  or  travelling,  offer  some 
explanation  of  that  general  similarity,  which  is  so 
conspicuous  an  element  in  the  comparative  mythology 
or  the  fairy-lore  of  the  world  ? 

Then  the  fact  that  the  dead  reappear  in  dreams  at 
that  season  of  the  night  in  which  also  the  stars  are 

1  Algic  Researches,  i.  122-8. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  263 

seen,  would  tend  to  confirm  the  idea  of  some  com- 
munity of  nature  between  the  dead  and  the  stars,  such 
community  as  is  indeed  not  unfrequently  found,  as 
where  the  Aurora  Borealis  or  the  Milky  Way  are 
identified  with  the  souls  of  the  departed.  So,  too,  a 
Californian  tribe  is  mentioned  as  having  believed  that 
chiefs  and  medicine-men  became  heavenly  bodies  after 
their  death,1  and  even  Tasmanians  could  point  to  the 
stars  they  would  go  to  at  death.2 

But  there  is  another  reason  which  would  still 
further  create  a  mental  confusion  between  the  deeds 
of  a  mortal  on  earth  and  the  motions  of  some  luminary 
in  heaven,  and  that  is  the  language  of  adulation,  which, 
from  ascribing  the  possession  of  the  sky  to  a  chief,  in 
order  to  gratify  him,  becomes  imperceptibly  the  lan- 
guage of  belief.  It  is  common  for  the  Zulus  to  say 
of  a  chief,  '  That  man  is  the  owner  of  heaven  and 
everything  is  his,'  and  a  native  once  expressed  his 
gratitude  to  a  missionary  by  pointing  to  the  heaven 
and  saying, '  Sir,  the  sun  is  yours.'  '  It  does  not  suffice 
them  to  honour  a  great  man  unless  they  place  the 
heaven  on  his  shoulders  ;  they  do  not  believe  what 
they  say,  they  merely  wish  to  ascribe  all  greatness  to 
him.'  If  when  a  chief  goes  to  war  the  sky  becomes 
overcast,  they  say,  '  The  heaven  of  the  chief  feels  that 
the  chief  is  suffering.'  Nor  was  any  chief  known  to 

1  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  iii.  526. 

*  Bonwick,  Daily  Life  of  the  Tasmanians,  182. 


264  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

deprecate  the  use  of  such  language  ;  he  '  expected  to 
have  it  said  always  that  the  heaven  was  his.'  * 

Obviously,  however,  there  is  no  fast  line  between 
the  language  of  flattery  and  the  language  of  fact. 
From  the  Tahitians,  who  would  speak  of  their  kings' 
houses  as  the  clouds  of  heaven,  or  the  Kafirs  of  Ethio- 
pia, who  called  their  kings  lords  of  the  sun  and  moon, 
it  is  easy  to  trace  the  progress  of  thought  which  actu- 
ally led  the  latter  people  to  pray  to  their  kings  for 
rain,  fine  weather,  or  the  cessation  of  storms.2  The 
Zulus,  like  many  other  savages,  think  of  the  sky  as  at 
no  great  distance  from  the  earth,  and  thus  as  the  roof  of 
their  king's  palace  in  the  same  way  that  the  earth  is  its 
floor.  '  Utshaka  claimed  to  be  king  of  heaven  as  well  as 
earth,  and  ordered  the  rain-doctors  to  be  killed,  be- 
cause in  assuming  power  to  control  the  weather  they 
were  interfering  with  his  royal  prerogative.'  3  But  if 
such  confusion  between  royalty  and  divinity  can  exist 
in  the  savage  mind  whilst  the  king  is  on  earth,  how 
natural  is  it  that  a  man,  associated  for  so  long  in  his 
lifetime  with  power  over  the  elements,  should,  after  his 
removal  from  earth  and  from  sight,  become  still  more 
mixed  up  with  elemental  forces,  or  perhaps  even  loca- 
lised in  some  point  of  space  !  The  word  Zulu  actually 
means  the  Heavens,  and  in  Zululand  King  of  the  Zulus 


1  Callaway,  Religious  System  of  the  Avtazu/u,  Part  i.  122-3. 

*  Pinkerton,  xvi.  689.         *  Callaway,  Zulu  Nursery  Tales,  i.  152. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  265 

means  king  of  the  heavens,1  so  that  when  the  king  is 
drawn  in  his  waggon  to  the  centre  of  the  kraal,  it  is 
not  surprising  that,  among  the  other  acclamations, 
such  as  '  Lion,  King  of  the  World,'  with  which  his 
creeping  subjects  salute  him,  they  should  actually 
salute  him  as  Zulu,  Heaven.2  It  can  only  be  from 
the  use  of  such  language  that  among  the  Zulus  '  rain, 
storm,  sunshine,  earthquakes,  and  all  else  which  we 
ascribe  to  natural  causes  are  brought  about  or  retarded 
by  various  people  to  whom  this  power  is  ascribed. 
Every  rain  that  comes  is  spoken  of  as  belonging  to 
somebody,  and  in  a  drought  they  say  that  the  owners 
of  rain  are  at  variance  among  themselves ' 3 

That  in  aftertime,  from  these  modes  of  thinking 
and  speaking,  the  attributes  of  a  Zulu  or  Tahitian 
chief  might  become  those  of  a  heaven-supporter,  such 
as  Atlas,  or  of  a  cloud-gatherer,  such  as  Zeus,  or  that, 
according  as  his  body  was  consigned  to  the  earth  or 
the  sea,  such  a  chief  might  become  the  earth-shaker 
or  the  ocean-ruler,  is  not  only  what  might  be  expected 
&  priori,  but  what  is  to  some  extent  justified  by  facts. 
In  South  Africa  the  word  which  the  missionaries  have 
adopted  for  both  Hottentots  and  Kafirs  as  the  name 
for  the  Deity,  from  its  being  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  Christian  conception,  is  believed  to  be  derived 
from  two  words  signifying  Wounded  Knee,  a  term 
applied  generations  back  to  a  Hottentot  sorcerer  of 
1  Leslie,  81,  98.  2  Ibid.  79.  *  Ibid.  169. 


266  THE  FAIRY- LORE  OF  SAVAGES. 

great  fame  and  skill,  who  happened  to  have  sustained 
some  injury  to  his  knees.  '  Having  been  held  in  high 
repute  for  extraordinary  powers  during  life,  he  (Utixo) 
continued  to  be  invoked  even  after  death  as  one  who 
could  still  relieve  and  protect ;  and  hence  in  process 
of  time  he  became  nearest  to  their  first  concep- 
tions of  God.' l  And  the  legend  of  Mannan  Mac 
Lear,  mythical  first  inhabitant  and  first  legislator  of 
the  Isle  of  Man,  discloses  a  germ  of  similar  origin 
underlying  the  myth  of  a  culture-hero,  as  his  story 
preserved  in  the  following  lines  will  show : 

'  This  merchant  Manxman  of  the  solemn  smile, 
First  legislator  of  our  rock-throned  isle, 
Dwelt  in  a  fort  (withdrawn  from  vulgar  sight), 
Cloud-capped  Baroole,  upon  thy  lofty  height. 
From  New  Year  tide  round  to  the  Ides  of  Yule, 
Nature  submitted  to  his  wizard  rule. 
Her  secret  force  he  could  with  charms  compel 
To  brew  a  storm  or  raging  tempests  quell  ; 
Make  one  man  seem  like  twenty  in  a  fray, 
And  drive  the  stranger  (i.e.  Scotch  invaders)  over  seas  away.'  * 

In  other  words,  he  was  a  great  sorcerer  and  a 
great  warrior,  whose  deeds  lived  after  him  in  story, 
and  whose  name  lent  itself  as  a  nucleus,  like  that 
of  Charlemagne  or  of  Alfred,  for  every  adventure 
that  was  strange,  for  every  imagination  that  was  won- 
derful. 

There  seems,  indeed,  no  reason  to   seek  for  any 

1  Appleyard,  Kafir  Grammar,  13. 

2  Mrs.  Cookson,  Legends  of  the  Manx,  23. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  267 

higher  genesis  than  this  for  any  of  the  culture-heroes 
of  any  mythology,  notwithstanding  that  they  have 
with  so  much  unanimity  been  forced  into  identifica- 
tion with  the  sun.  Zeus  himself  means  but  the  same 
thing  as  Zulu,  namely,  the  Sky  or  Heaven,  so  that  it 
is  only  natural  that  nothing  that  could  be  told  of  the 
sky  '  was  not  in  some  form  or  other  ascribed  to  Zeus,' l 
just  as  we  see  that  modern  Zulus  ascribe  to  their 
chiefs  all  atmospheric  phenomena,  and  actually  confer 
on  them  the  appellation,  Zulu.  There  is  indeed 
nothing  in  which  Zeus  differs  essentially  from  Mana- 
bozho  of  North  American  mythology,  from  Krishna 
of  the  Hindus,  from  Maui  of  the  Polynesians,  from 
Quawteaht  of  the  rude  Ahts,  or  from  Kutka  of  the 
still  ruder  Kamschadals.  The  stories  told  of  one 
may  be  more  refined  than  those  told  of  another, 
but  in  no  case  are  these  divinities  more  than  names, 
which  serve  as  convenient  centres  for  the  grouping 
of  memorable  feats  or  fictions.  Such  names  serve 
also,  when  once  men  have  begun  to  reflect  on  the  arts 
or  customs  of  their  lives,  as  sufficient  explanations  of 
their  origin ;  and  just  as  we  find  the  institution  of 
marriage  attributed  in  China,  or  Greece,  or  India  to 
some  mythical  hero,  so  we  find  the  discovery  of  fire 
and  light,  or  the  invention  of  remarkable  arts,  duly 
ascribed  to  some  hypothetical  originator.  In  Poly- 
nesian mythology,  Maui,  in  Thlinkeet  Indian  mytho- 

1  Prof.  Max  Miiller,  Science  of  Language,  ii.  444. 


268  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

l°gy»  Yehl,  played  the  part  of  Prometheus  in  procuring 
fire  for  the  use  of  men.  From  seeing  a  spider  make 
its  web,  Manabozho  invented  the  art  of  making 
fishing  nets ;  and  Kutka  (who,  like  Manabozho,  is 
also  in  some  sense  the  maker  of  all  things)  taught  the 
Kamschadals  how  to  build  huts,  how  to  catch  birds, 
and  beasts,  and  fish.1  The  supreme  deity  of  Finnish 
mythology  not  only  brought  fire  for  men  from  heaven 
but  was  the  inventor  of  music  ;  yet  like  the  other  gods 
he  was  but  a  magician,  able  to  destroy  the  world  at 
pleasure,  to  hold  the  sun  captive  in  a  box,  to  conquer 
all  monsters  and  heal  all  diseases.2 

American  mythology  abounds  in  culture-heroes, 
mythical  personages  who  taught  men  useful  arts  and 
laws,  and  left,  in  the  reverence  attached  to  their 
memory,  a  quasi-religious  system  for  their  posterity.3 
These  too  have  been  resolved  into  observation  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  sun  or  the  dawn.  Manabozho  or 
Michabo,  the  ancestor  of  the  Algonquins,  whose  name 
literally  means  the  Great  Hare,  and  conferred  peculiar 
respect  on  the  clan  who  bore  it  as  their  totem,  means 
in  reality  (according  to  this  theory)  the  Great  Light, 
the  Spirit  of  Dawn,  or  under  another  aspect  the 
North-west  Wind  ;  the  confusion  between  the  hare  and 


1  Steller,  253-4. 

2  Leouzon  le  Due,  La  Finlande,  51,  87.     'A  dire  vrai,  tous  les 
dieux  de  la  mythologie  finnoise  ne  sont  que  les  magiciens. ' 

*  Bancroft,  v.  23. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  269 

the  dawn  being  supposed  to  have  arisen  from  a  root 
ivab,  which  gave  two  words,  one  meaning  white  and 
the  other  hare,  so  that  what  was  originally  told  of  the 
White  Light  came  to  be  told  of  a  Hare,  and  what 
was  at  first  but  a  personification  of  natural  pheno- 
mena became  a  tissue  of  inconsistent  absurdities.1  In- 
genious, however,  as  such  a  solution  undoubtedly  is,  it 
is  easier  to  believe  that  the  stories  of  the  Great  Hare 
have  grown  round  a  man,  called,  in  complete  accord- 
ance with  American  custom,  after  the  hare,  and 
once  a  famous  sorcerer  or  warrior  like  Mannan  Mac 
Lear ;  for  in  all  the  more  recent  traditions  of  him, 
there  is  much  more  of  the  magician  or  shaman  than 
of  the  wind  or  the  dawn.  He  turns  at  will  into  a 
wolf  or  an  oak  stump,  he  converses  with  all  creation, 
he  outwits  serpents  by  his  cunning,  he  has  a  lodge 
from  which  he  utters  oracles ;  as  brother  of  the 
winds,  by  reason  of  his  swiftness,  there  is  no  incon- 
gruity in  the  idea  that  since  his  death  he  is  the 
director  of  storms,  and  resides  in  the  region  of  his 
brother,  the  North  Wind.  It  is  curious  that  he  is 
swallowed  up  by  the  king  of  the  fish,  in  this  resem- 
bling in  Aryan  mythology  Pradyumna,  the  son  of 
Vishnu,  who  after  being  swallowed  by  a  fish  is  ulti- 
mately restored  to  life,2  or  in  Polynesian  mythology 
Maui,  who  is  rescued  by  the  sky  from  the  embrace  of 
the  jelly  fish.  Maui,  like  Tell,  Sigurd,  Hercules,  and 

1  Brinton,  Myths  of  the  New  World,  164.        2  Vishnu  Purana,  575. 


270  THE  FAIRY- LORE  OF  SAVAGES. 

others,  has  recently  been  discovered  to  be  the  sun, 
the  fish  which  swallows  him  signifying  really  the 
earth ;  for  does  not  the  earth  swallow  the  sun  every 
night,  and  is  not  the  sun  only  freed  by  the  eastern 
sky  in  the  morning  ? l  Doubtless,  on  such  a  reading 
of  his  life,  Manabozho  has  as  just  a  claim  as  Mani  to 
a  place  in  the  solar  system  ;  but  then — who  that  has 
ever  lived  and  died  but  has  the  same  ? 

Same,  the  great  name  of  Brazilian  legend,  came 
across  the  ocean  from  the  rising  sun ;  he  had  power 
over  the  elements  and  tempests ;  the  trees  of  the 
forests  would  recede  to  make  room  for  him,  the  animals 
used  to  crouch  before  him ;  lakes  and  rivers  became 
solid  for  him ;  and  he  taught  the  use  of  agriculture 
and  magic.  Like  him,  Bochica,  the  great  lawgiver  of 
the  Muyscas  and  son  of  the  sun,  he  who  invented  for 
them  their  calendar  and  regulated  their  festivals,  had 
a  white  beard,  a  detail  in  which  all  the  American 
culture-heroes  agree.2  It  is  not,  however,  on  this 
particular  feature,  so  much  as  on  their  whiteness  in 
general  that  stress  has  been  laid  to  identify  them  with 
the  great  White  Light  of  Dawn.  Of  the  Mexican  Quet- 
zalcoatl,  Dr.  Brinton  says,  '  Like  all  the  dawn  heroes 
he,  too,  was  represented  of  white  complexion,  clothed 

1  Schirren,  144.     Maui  wird  im  Meere  geformt,  von  einem  Fisch 
verschluckt,  mit  diesem  ans  Land  geworfen  und  herausgeschnitten. 
Der  Fisch  ist  die  Erde  wekhe  die  Sonne  zur  Nacht  verschlingt ;  der 
Himmel  im  Osten  befreit  die  Sonne  aus  der  Erde. 

2  Bancroft,  v.  23. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  271 

in  long  white  robes."  The  white  is  the  emphatic  thing 
about  them.  So  the  name  Viracocha  of  the  Peruvians, 
translated  by  Oviedo,  '  the  foam  of  the  sea/  is,  we  are 
to  believe,  a  metaphor:  'the  dawn  rises  above  the 
horizon  as  the  snowy  foam  on  the  surface  of  the  lake.' l 
But  Peruvian  tradition  was  confused  as  to  whether 
Viracocha  was  the  highest  god  and  creator  of  the 
world,  or  only  the  first  Inca ;  and  such  confusion  be- 
tween humanity  and  divinity,  which  is  everywhere  the 
normal  result  of  the  deification  of  the  dead,  is  at  least 
a  more  natural  account  of  the  origin  of  his  worship 
than  a  fancied  resemblance  between  the  sea-foam 
and^e  dawn.2  Heitsi  Eibip,  whom  the  Namaqua 
Hottentots  call  their  Great  Father,  and  on  whose 
graves  they  throw  stones  for  luck,  so  far  resembles  a 
solar  hero  that  he  is  believed  to  have  come  like  Same 
from  the  East ;  yet,  though  much  that  is  wonderful 
already  attaches  to  his  memory,  he  has  not  yet 
thrown  off  his  human  personality,  but  is  known  to 
have  been  merely  a  sorcerer  of  great  fame  ; 3  so  that 
in  his  deification  we  have  almost  living  evidence  of 
the  process  here  assumed  to  have  operated  widely  in 
the  formation  of  the  world's  mythology. 

To  the  influence  of  the  language  of  adulation  in 


1  Brinton,  1 80. 

*  Waitz  (Anthropologie,  iv.  394,  448,  455)   adopts  the  view  of  the 
human  origin  of  Viracocha. 

5  Bleek,  Hottentot  Fables,  75. 


272  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

the  formation  of  mythology,  may  also  be  added  that 
of  the  language  of  affection  or  of  ridicule.  Nicknames, 
taken  at  hazard  from  the  animal  world,  or  from  any 
object  of  earth,  air,  or  water,  would  be  obvious  sources 
of  improbable  stories,  tending  to  the  completest  con- 
fusion between  the  doings  of  a  man  and  the  attributes 
of  the  thing  after  which  he  was  named.  Nicknames 
of  affection  would  produce  the  same  result ;  and  if, 
as  is  likely,  other  people  besides  the  Finns  call  their 
daughters  Moon,  Sunshine,  or  Water-glimmer,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how,  for  instance,  the  departure  of  Sun- 
shine as  a  bride  might  come  afterwards  to  be  ex- 
plained as  a  myth  of  the  dawn  or  of  twilight,  and  in 
the  same  way  anything  else  that  happened  to  her.1 

An  elemental  explanation  has  been  applied  with 
such  uniform  effect,  first  to  Aryan  and  then  to  Poly- 
nesian and  American  mythology,  that  in  the  resort 
to  a  more  natural,  albeit  less  poetical  hypothesis, 
there  may  be  danger  of  carrying  opposing  theories 
too  far.  There  are,  however,  certain  obvious  limits  ; 
nor,  if  we  doubt  whether  man  in  a  primitive  state 
really  had  the  poetical  views  of  nature  so  generally 
claimed  for  him,  need  we  deny  to  him  all  poetical 
origination  in  the  construction  of  his  mythology. 

1  Schiefner,  ICalewala,  129.     In  the  lamentations  over  an  approach- 
ing marriage,  an  old  man  says  to  the  bride  : 

'  Seinen  Mond  nannf  dick  der  Vater, 
Sonnenschein  nannf  dick  die  Mutter, 
Wasscrschimmer  dich  der  Bruder,'  &c. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  273 

Take,  for  instance,  this  typical  Aryan  passage,  '  By 
the  early  Aryan  mind  the  howling  wind  was  con- 
ceived as  a  great  dog  or  wolf.  As  the  fearful  beast 
was  heard  speeding  by  the  windows  or  over  the  house- 
top, the  inmates  trembled,  for  none  knew  but  his 
own  soul  might  forthwith  be  required  of  him.  Hence 
to  this  day,  among  ignorant  people,  the  howling  of 
a  dog  is  supposed  to  portend  a  death  in  the  family.' J 
When  we  find  that  a  dog's  howling  portends  the 
death  of  its  master  among  the  Nubians,2  and  is  re- 
garded as  a  dreaded  omen  by  the  Kamschadals,3  as 
well  as  by  the  Fijians,4  and  that  the  Esquimaux 
lay  a  dog's  head  by  the  grave  of  a  child  to  show  it 
the  way  to  the  land  of  souls,  we  may  safely  reject 
the  Aryan  pedigree  of  the  superstition,  nor  go  any 
farther  for  its  explanation  than  the  nature  of  the 
sound  itself.  But  though  Aryan  mythology  may  be 
taken  to  have  grown,  like  any  other,  round  human 
personalities,  and  though  popular  superstitions  are  in 
many  instances  the  primary  products  of  the  laws  of 
psychology,  ranking  rather  among  the  sources  than 
the  debris  of  mythology,  there  is  proof  from  the  fairy- 
lore  of  savages  that  some  of  them  have  so  far  advanced 
in  thought  as  to  be  not  incapable  of  personifying  ab- 
stract ideas.  Dr.  Rink  alludes  to  the  tendency  of  the 

1  Fiske,  35,  76. 

2  Schweinfurth,  Heart  of  Africa,  ii.  326. 

8  Steller,  279.  4  Williams,  Fiji,  204. 

T 


274  THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES. 

Esquimaux  to  give  figurative  explanations  of  things, 
to  personify,  for  instance,  human  qualities,  just  as 
they  are  personified  in  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress.' l  The 
Chippewya  Indians  personified  sleep  as  Weeng,  a  giant 
insect  that  was  once  seen  on  a  tree  in  a  wood,  where 
it  made  a  murmuring  sound  with  its  wings ;  and  it 
was  generally  conceived  to  cause  sleep  by  sending  a 
number  of  little  fairies  to  beat  drowsy  foreheads  with 
their  tiny  clubs.2  And  the  Odjibwas,  with  a  fancy 
which  has  been  so  poetically  preserved  by  Longfellow, 
identified  Winter  with  an  old  hoary-headed  man 
called  Peboan,  Spring  with  a  young  man  of  quick 
step  and  rosy  face  called  Segwun.3 

The  testimony,  therefore,  afforded  by  the  obser- 
vation of  modern  savage  races  as  to  the  growth  of 
mythology  discloses  several  ways  in  which,  as  it  is 
being  formed  now,  we  may  infer  that  it  was  formed 
thousands  of  years  ago.  The  evidence  of  Steller 
that  the  Kamschadals  explained  everything  to  them- 
selves according  to  the  liveliness  of  their  fancy, 
letting  nothing  escape  their  examination,4  accords  with 
evidence  concerning  other  races  to  the  effect  that  some 
intellectual  curiosity  enters  as  a  constituent  into  the 

1  Rink,  Tales,  <Srv.  of  the  Esquimaux,  90. 

2  Algic  Researches,  ii.  226. 
8  Hiawatha,  Canto  xxi. 

4  Steller,  267.  '  Dieltalmanesgeben  nach  \\mxungemrinlebhaften 
Phantasievon  alien  Dingen  Raison,  und  lassen  nicht  dasgeringste  ohne 
Critic  vorbei.  Yet  they  had  neither  reverence  nor  names  for  the  stars, 
calling  only  the  Great  Bear  the  moving  star,  281. 


THE  FAIRY-LORE   OF  SAVAGES.  275 

lowest  human  intelligence,  giving  birth  to  explana- 
tions which  are  as  absurd  to  us  as  they  are  natural  to 
their  original  framers.  A  ready  capacity  for  inven- 
tion is  no  rare  trait  of  the  savage  character.  Sir  G. 
Grey  found  that  the  capability  of  Australian  natives 
to  invent  marvels  and  wonders  was  proportioned  to 
the  quantity  of  food  he  offered  them,  and  that  rather 
than  confess  ignorance  of  a  thing  they  would  invent 
a  tradition  ; '  whilst  in  the  fondness  of  the  Koranna 
Hottentots,  as  they  sit  round  their  evening  fires, 
of  relating  fictitious  adventures,  lies  a  source  of 
legendary  lore  which  is  not  likely  to  be  limited  to 
South  Africa,  and  is  probably  aided  elsewhere  as  it 
is  there  by  the  knowledge,  common  to  so  many 
savage  tribes,  of  the  preparation  of  intoxicating 
drinks.2  If  to  these  sources  of  mythology  be  added 
the  help  supplied  by  dreams  to  the  elaboration  of 
fiction  ;  the  misconceptions  effected  in  traditions  by 
the  language  of  flattery,  of  affection,  or  cf  ridicule ; 
and,  lastly,  the  tendency,  probably  consequent  on 
such  confusion,  to  personify  things  or  even  abstract 
ideas ;  the  wonder  will  no  longer  be  that  the  myth- 
ology of  the  different  races  of  the  world  displays  so 
much  uniformity,  but  that  uniformity  within  limited 
ranges  should  ever  have  been  taken  as  a  proof  of  a 
common  ethnological  origin. 

1   Travels  in  Australia,  i.  261,  297. 

1  Thompson,  South  Africa,  ii.  34. 

T  2 


276 


IX. 
COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

FOLK-LORE  is  often  explained  as  the  remains  of 
ancient  mythology,  but  the  explanation,  though 
perhaps  true  of  some  traditional  lore  still  surviving  in 
legends  and  fairy  tales,  seems  of  doubtful  application 
to  those  popular  superstitions  yet  so  prevalent  among 
us,  of  which  our  kitchens,  our  cottages,  and  our 
nurseries  are  the  chief  depositories.  Beliefs,  fancies, 
and  customs,  however  trivial  in  themselves,  and 
locally  absurd,  gain  an  interest  from  the  area  they 
cover  and  the  races  they  connect ;  suggesting  past 
unions  between  nations  now  remote,  in  the  same 
way  as  the  smallest  weeds  are  capable  of  telling, 
by  their  geographical  dispersion,  of  lands  that  once 
stretched  where  seas  now  roll.  To  take  some  in- 
stances. The  English  tradition  that  a  swallow's 
nest  is  lucky,  and  its  life  protected  by  imaginary 
penalties,  is  one  that  in  isolation  we  should  naturally 
and  rightly  disregard.  But  when  we  find  that  the 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  277 

belief  belongs  to  Germany,  and  that  the  supposed 
penalties  are  the  same  in  Yorkshire  as  they  are  in 
Swabia,  our  wonder  is  aroused ;  and  when  we  further 
learn  that  in  China,  too,  the  swallow's  nest  is  lucky 
and  its  life  inviolate,  we  become  aware  of  a  possible 
history  and  antiquity  attaching  to  the  superstition, 
which  offer  an  inviting  field  for  speculation  and  study. 
The  belief,  that  the  first  appearance  of  mice  in  a 
house  betokens  death,  becomes  of  interest  when  we 
find  it  in  Russia  as  well  as  in  Devonshire.  Mothers 
there  are  both  in  Germany  and  in  England  who  fear 
their  children  may  grow  up  to  be  thieves  if  their  nails 
are  cut  before  their  first  year  is  over.  Such  super- 
stitions, as  we  call  them,  had,  without  doubt,  once  a 
reason ;  in  some  cases  still  to  be  traced,  in  others 
effaced  by  the  wear  and  tear  of  time.  By  the 
application  to  them  of  the  comparative  method  not 
only  may  we  hope  to  explain  and  connect  ideas 
otherwise  inexplicable,  but  also  to  come  to  conclu- 
sions not  uninteresting  from  an  archaeological  point 
of  view.  For  if  it  can  be  shown  that  they  are  the 
remains  of  ancient  barbarism  rather  than  of  ancient 
mythology,  their  testimony  may  be  added  to  that, 
long  since  given  by  the  more  material  relics  and 
witnesses  of  early  times,  concerning  the  general  history 
of  civilisation. 

For  the  existence  of  similar  traditions  as  of  similar 
fairy-tales  in  widely  remote  districts  there  are  three 


278  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

possible  hypotheses.  These  are,  migration,  community 
of  origin,  or  similarity  of  development.  Either  they 
have  spread  from  one  place  to  another,  or  they  are  the 
legacies  of  times  when  the  people  possessing  them  were 
actually  united,  or  they  have  sprung  up  independently 
in  different  localities,  in  virtue  of  the  natural  laws  of 
mental  growth.  It  may  be  difficult  of  any  given 
belief  to  say  to  which  of  these  three  classes  it  be- 
longs ;  but  there  are  many  beliefs,  so  alike  in  general 
features,  yet  so  divergent  in  detail,  as  best  to  accord 
with  the  theory  of  a  common  descent  or  a  common 
development.  Some,  for  instance,  may  be  so  common 
to  the  different  nations  of  one  stock,  as  to  be  trace- 
able to  periods  anterior  to  their  dispersion  ;  whilst 
others,  yet  more  widely  spread  than  these,  suggest 
relationships  between  races  of  men  more  fundamental 
and  remote  than  can  be  detected  in  language,  and 
point  to  an  affinity  that  is  older  and  stronger  than 
mere  affinity  of  blood,  an  affinity,  that  is,  in  the  con- 
ceptions and  fancies  of  primitive  thought.  For 
where  actual  relationship  is  not  proved  by  language, 
analogies  in  tradition  are  better  accounted  for  by 
supposing  similar  grooves  of  mental  development 
than  by  any  other  theory.  Philology  may  prove 
a  relationship  between,  let  us  say,  the  Nixens  of 
Germany  and  the  Nisses  of  Scandinavia :  but 
there  is  no  relationship  beyond  similarity  of  con- 
ception between  the  Nereids  of  antiquity  and  the 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  279 

mermaids  of  the  North,  or  between  the  Brownies  ot 
Scotland  and  the  Lares  of  Latium.  Children,  of 
whatever  race  or  country  they  may  be,  dislike  the 
dark,  nor  is  it  thought  necessary  to  account  for  this 
common  trait  by  any  theory  of  connection  or  descent. 
So  it  is  with  nations.  They  are  or  were,  in  the  face 
of  nature,  but  as  children  in  the  dark,  and  the  nearly 
similar  phenomena  of  sun  and  storm,  breeze  and  calm, 
have  sufficed  to  create  for  them,  in  their  several  homes, 
many  of  those  fears  and  fancies  we  find  common  to 
them  all. 

No  one  who  has  not  turned  special  attention 
to  the  subject,  can  form  any  conception  of  the  mass 
of  purely  pagan  ideas,  which,  varnished  over  by 
Christianity,  but  barely  hidden  by  it,  grow  in  rank 
profusion  in  our  very  midst  and  exercise  a  living 
hold,  which  it  is  impossible  either  to  realise  or  to 
fathom,  on  the  popular  mind.  Like  old  Roman  or 
British  remains,  buried  under  subsequent  accumula- 
tions of  earth  and  stones,  or  superficially  concealed 
by  an  overgrowth  of  herbage,  uninjured  during  all 
the  length  of  time  they  have  lain  unobserved,  there 
they  lie  just  beneath  the  surface  of  nineteenth- 
century  life,  as  indelible  records  of  our  mental  history 
and  origin.  Only  in  the  higher  social  strata  can  they 
be  deemed  extinct ;  but  if  it  can  no  longer  be  said, 
as  it  was  in  the  seventeenth  century,  that  most 
houses  of  the  West-end  of  London  have  the  horse- 


28o  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

shoe  on  the  threshold,1  yet  it  may  still  be  said  of 
many  a  farm  or  cottage  in  the  country.  The 
astronomer  Tycho  Brahe,  if  he  met  an  old  woman  or 
hare  on  leaving  home,  would  take  the  hint  to  turn 
back :  but  it  seems  to  be  only  the  working  popula- 
tion of  England,  Scotland,  or  Germany  who  still  do 
the  same.  Statistics  show  that  the  receipts  of 
omnibus  and  railway  companies  in  France  are  less  on 
Friday  than  on  any  other  day  ;  and  many  a  German 
that  lay  dead  on  the  carnage  fields  of  the  late  war 
was  found  to  have  carried  his  word-charm  as  his  safest 
shield  against  sword  or  bullet.  Most  English  villages 
still  have  their  v/ise  men  or  women,  whose  powers 
range,  like  those  of  the  shamans  in  savage  tribes,  from 
ruling  the  planets  to  curing  rheumatics  or  detecting 
thieves ;  and  witchcraft  still  has  its  believers,  occa- 
sionally its  victims,  as  of  yore.2 

We  who  have  been  brought  up  to  look  upon  the 
classification    of  things  into  animal,  vegetable,  and 

1  Aubrey's  Miscellanies,   197. 

2  Those  who  doubt  the  existence  of  much  popular  superstition  in 
this  century  may  judge  of  the  amount  and  value  of  the  evidence  by  re- 
ferring  to   the   following  books  :    I.    All  the  volumes  of  Notes  and 
Queries,   Index,  Folk-Lore.     2.  Harland    and  Wilkinson,  Lancashire 
Folk-Lore,  1867.     3.   Henderson's  Notes  on  the  Folk-Lore  of  the  North- 
ern Counties  of  England  and  the  Borders,  1866.     4.  Kelly's  Curiosities 
of  Indo-European  Tradition  and  Folk-Lore,  1863.     5.   Stewart's  Popu- 
lar Superstitions  of  the  Highlanders  of  Scotland,  1851.     6.   Sternberg's 
Dialect    and   Folk-Lore  of   Northamptonshire,     1851.       7.    Thorpe's 
Northern  Mythology,  1851.     8.   Birlinger,  Volksthumliches  aus  Schwa- 
ben,  1861.     9.  Koehler,    Volksbrauch  im   Voigtlande,   1867.     IO.  Bos- 
quet, La  Normandie  Romanesque,  1845. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  281 

mineral,  as  primary,  or  indeed  intuitive,  are  apt  to 
forget  that  savages  never  classify,  and  that  animate 
and  inanimate  to  them  are  both  alike.  Sir  John 
Lubbock  has  collected  conclusive  evidence  that  so 
inconceivable  a  confusion  of  thought  exists.1  The 
Tahitians,  who  sowed  some  iron  nails  that  young 
ones  might  grow  from  them  ;  the  Esquimaux,  who 
thought  a  musical-box  the  child  of  a  small  hand- 
organ  ;  the  Bushmen,  who  mistook  a  large  waggon 
for  the  mother  of  some  smaller  ones,  show  the 
tendency  of  savages  to  identify  motion  with  life,  and 
to  attribute  feelings  and  relations  such  as  actuate  or 
connect  themselves  to  everything  that  moves  of  itself 
or  is  capable  of  being  moved.  A  native  sent  by  one 
missionary  to  another  with  some  loaves,  and  a  letter 
stating  the  number,  having  eaten  two  of  them  and 
been  detected  through  the  letter,  took  the  precaution 
the  next  time  to  put  the  letter  under  a  stone  that  it 
might  not  see  the  theft  committed.2  Now  there  are 
numerous  superstitions,  which  there  is  reason  to 
think  are  relics  of  this  savage  state  of  thought, 
when  all  that  existed  existed  under  the  same  condi- 
tions as  man  himself,  capable  of  the  same  feelings, 
and  subject  to  the  same  wants  and  sorrows.  Take, 
for  example,  bees.  Bees  are  credited  with  a  perfect 
comprehension  of  all  that  men  do  and  utter,  and,  as 
members  themselves  of  the  family  they  belong  to, 

1  Origin  of  Civilisation,  33.  *  Ibid.,  23. 


282  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

they  must  be  treated  in  every  way  as  human  in  their 
emotions.  On  the  day  of  the  Purification  in  France 
it  is  customary  in  some  parts  for  women  to  read  the 
Gospel  of  the  day  to  the  bees.1  French  children  are 
taught  that  the  inmates  of  the  hive  will  come  out  to 
sting  them  for  any  bad  language  uttered  within  their 
hearing ;  and  in  South  Russia  it  is  believed  '  that  if 
any  robbery  be  committed  where  a  number  of  hives 
are  kept,  the  whole  stock  will  gradually  diminish,  and 
in  a  short  time  die  ;  for  bees,  they  say,  will  not  suffer 
thieving.' 2  Many  persons  have  probably  at  some  time 
of  their  lives,  on  seeing  a  crape-covered  hive,  learnt  on 
inquiry  that  the  bees  were  in  mourning  for  some 
member  of  their  owner's  family.  In  Suffolk,  when  a 
death  occurs  in  a  house,  the  inmates  immediately  tell 
the  bees,  ask  them  formally  to  the  funeral,  and  fix  crape 
on  their  hives ;  otherwise  it  is  believed  they  would 
die  or  desert.  And  the  same  custom,  for  the  same 
reason,  prevails,  with  local  modifications,  not  only  in 
nearly  every  English  county,  but  very  widely  over 
the  continent.  In  Normandy  and  Brittany  may  be 
seen,  as  in  England,  the  crape-set  hives ;  in  York- 
shire some  of  the  funeral  bread,  in  Lincolnshire  some 
cake  and  sugar,  may  be  seen  at  the  hive  door  ;  and 
a  Devonshire  nurse  on  her  way  to  a  funeral  has  been 
known  to  send  back  a  child  to  perform  the  duty  she 

1  Hammerton,  Round  my  House,  254. 

2  Holderness,  Journey  from  Riga  to  the  Crimea,  254. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  283 

herself  had  forgotten,  of  telling  the  bees.  The  usual 
explanation  of  these  customs  and  ideas  is  that  they 
originated  long  ago  with  the  death  or  flight  of  some 
bees,  consequent  on  the  neglect  they  incurred  when 
the  hand  that  once  tended  them  could  do  so  no 
longer.  Yet  a  wider  survey  of  analogous  facts  leads 
to  the  explanation  above  suggested  ;  for,  not  to  dwell 
on  the  fact  that  in  some  places  in  England  they  are 
informed  of  weddings  as  well  as  of  funerals,  and 
their  hives  are  decorated  with  favours  as  well  as  with 
crape,  the  practice  of  giving  information  of  deaths 
extends  in  some  parts  not  only  to  other  animals  as 
well,  but,  in  addition,  to  inanimate  things.  In 
Lithuania,  deaths  are  announced,  not  only  to  the 
bees,  but  to  horses  and  cattle,  by  the  rattling  of  a 
bunch  of  keys,  and  the  same  custom  is  reported  from 
Dartford  in  Kent.  In  the  North  Riding,  not  long 
since,  a  farmer  gravely  attributed  the  loss  of  a  cow  to 
his  not  having  told  it  of  his  wife's  death.  In  Corn- 
wall, the  indoor  plants  are  often  put  into  mourning  as 
well  as  the  hives ;  and  at  Rauen,  in  North  Germany, 
not  only  are  the  bees  informed  of  their  master's  death, 
but  the  trees  also,  by  means  of  shaking  them.  Near 
Speier,  not  only  must  the  bees  be  moved,  but  the 
wine  and  vinegar  must  be  shaken,  if  it  is  wished  that 
they  shall  not  turn  bad.  Near  Wiirtemburg,  the 
vinegar  must  be  shaken,  the  bird-cage  hung  differ- 
ently, the  cattle  tied  up  differently,  and  the  beehive 


284  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

transposed.  Near  Ausbach  the  flower-pots  must  also 
be  moved,  and  the  \yine-casks  knocked  three  times ; 
while  at  Gernsheim,  not  only  must  the  wine  in  the 
cellar  be  shaken,  to  prevent  it  turning  sour,  but  the 
corn  in  the  loft  must  be  moved  if  the  sown  corn  is  to 
sprout.1  But  all  these  customs,  being  too  much  alike 
to  be  unrelated,  and  too  widely  spread  to  have  sprung 
up  without  some  reason,  by  some  mere  caprice  or 
coincidence,  it  is  difficult  to  suggest  any  other  reason 
for  them  than  that  they  go  back  to  a  time  when  not 
only  bees  and  cattle,  but  trees  and  flowers,  vinegar 
and  wine,  were,  like  human  beings,  considered  liable 
to  take  offence,  and  capable  also  of  being  pacified 
by  kind  treatment,  since,  according  as  their  several 
temperaments  predisposed  them,  they  were  able,  by 
deserting,  dying,  turning  sour,  or  other  untoward 
conduct,  to  resent  neglect  or  disrespect  on  the  part 
of  their  owners.  Such  beliefs  belong  to  the  lowest 
state  of  mental  development,  to  a  time  when  the  most 
obvious  marks  of  natural  differentiation  were  as  yet 
insufficient  to  produce  corresponding  distinctions  in 
the  minds  of  their  beholders. 

Other  popular  traditions  strengthen  this  interpre- 
tation. In  Normandy  and  Brittany  it  is  thought  that 
bees  will  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  bought  or  sold ; 

1  Grimm,  Deiitsche  Mythologie,  '  Aberglaube, '  cases  576,  664,  698, 
898.  These  practices,  even  if  no  longer  existent,  throw  light  upon 
those  that  still  are. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  285 

in  other  words,  that  they  would  take  offence  if  made 
the  subjects  of  sale  and  barter.1  The  same  belief  pre- 
vails in  Cheshire,  Suffolk,  Hampshire,  Cornwall,  and 
Devonshire,  like  the  old  Russian  rule  that  sacred 
images  might  not  be  spoken  of  as  '  bought '  but  only 
as  '  exchanged  for  money.' 2  The  value  of  bees  is 
measured,  not  by  money,  but  by  corn,  hay,  or  some 
other  exchangeable  commodity  ;  in  Sussex,  if  any 
money  is  given  for  bees,  it  must  be  gold.  Connected 
with  this  idea  of  the  quasi-humanity  of  bees  is  the 
world-wide  fear  of  slighting  dangerous  animals  by 
calling  them  by  their  customary  names.  Mahometan 
women  dare  not  call  a  snake  a  snake  lest  they  should 
be  bitten  by  one  ;  Swedish  women  avert  the  wrath  of 
bears  by  speaking  of  them  as  old  men.  Livonian  fisher- 
men, when  at  sea,  fear  to  endanger  their  nets  by  calling 
any  animal  by  its  common  name.  At  Mecklenburg, 
in  the  twelve  days  after  Christmas,  the  fox  goes  by  the 
appellation  of  the  '  Long  Tail  ; '  even  the  timid  mouse 
by  that  of  the  '  Floor-runner.'  The  Esthonians  at  all 
times  call  the  fox  '  Gray  Coat,'  the  bear  '  Broad-foot/ 
and  should  they  take  the  liberty  of  too  often  mention- 
ing the  hare,  their  flax  crops,  they  fear,  would  be  in 
peril.  In  Sweden  people  dare  not  mention  to  anyone 
in  the  course  of  the  day  the  number  of  fish  they  have 
caught,  if  they  would  catch  any  more  ;  a  feeling  to 

1  Amelia  Bosquet,  La  Normandie  pittoresque,  2lJ. 
*  Fletcher,  Russe  Commonweal,  78. 


286  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

which  is  probably  related  the  North-Country  prejudice 
against  counting  one's  fish  before  the  day's  sport  is  over. 
Witchcraft,  although  it  represents  a  very  low  stage 
of  religious  conception,  yet  in  its  primary  idea  of  a 
sympathy  or  identity  existing  between  an  original  and 
its  image,  manifests  some  degree  of  intellectual  ad- 
vancement. For  the  idea  of  vicarious  or  representa- 
tive influence,  that  if  you  wish  to  injure  a  man  you 
can  do  so  by  an  injury  to  a  bit  of  his  clothing  or  a 
lock  of  his  hair,  is,  so  far  as  it  goes,  a  spiritual  idea, 
presupposing  notions  about  the  interdependence  of 
nature,  and  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  what  we 
understand  by  mere  materialism.  Materialism  indeed 
is  one  of  the  latest  growths  of  the  human  mind,  whilst 
spiritualism  is  one  of  its'  earliest.  For  to  a  savage, 
everything  that  exists  lives  and  feels  like  himself,  and 
the  unseen  spirits  that  surround  and  affect  him  are  as 
the  motes  in  a  sunbeam  for  variety  and  number.  The 
native  Indian  speaks  of  the  earth  as  *  the  big  plate 
where  all  the  spirits  eat.' l  Yet  the  fetichistic 
mode  of  thought  is  undoubtedly  a  low,  and  to  us  an 
absurd  one.  Burnings  in  effigy  may  probably  be 
traced  to  it,  and  the  stories  so  common  in  the  annals 
of  witchcraft  of  waxen  images  stuck  with  pins  or 
burned,  in  order  to  injure  the  person  they  represented, 
undoubtedly  belong  to  it.  In  America  Kane  found 

1  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  v.  419. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  287 

an  Indian  tribe  who  believed  that  the  hair  of  an 
enemy  confined  with  a  frog  in  a  hole  would  cause 
the  owner  of  the  hair  to  suffer  the  torments  of  the 
frog.1  In  the  Fiji  Islands  the  health  of  a  person  can 
be  made  to  fail  with  the  decay  of  a  cocoa-nut  buried 
under  a  temple.2  The  Finns  are  said  to  this  day  to 
shoot  in  the  water  at  images  of  their  absent  enemies. 
But  our  own  country  has  its  analogies.  In  Suffolk,  in 
the  last  century,  if  an  animal  was  thought  to  be  be- 
witched, it  was  burned  over  a  large  fire,  under  the 
idea  that  as  it  consumed  away  the  author  of  its  be- 
witchment would  consume  away  too.  In  Anglesey  it 
is  still  believed  that  the  name  of  a  person  inscribed  on 
a  pipkin,  containing  a  live  frog  stuck  full  of  pins,  will 
injuriously  affect  the  bearerxrf  the  name. 

There  are  a  numerous  set  of  popular  traditions 
which  clearly  relate  to  the  same  state  of  thought. 
There  is  a  feeling  so  wide  that  it  may  be  called 
European,  that  cut  hair  should  always  be  burned, 
never  thrown  away :  the  reason  given  in  France,  in 
the  Netherlands,  in  Denmark,  and  near  Saalfeld  in 
Germany,  being,  that  its  discovery  by  a  witch  would 
subject  its  owner  to  sorcery ;  that  generally  given  in 
England  and  also  in  Swabia  being,  that  if  a  bird  took 
any  of  it  for  its  nest  the  bearer  would  suffer  from 
headache  or  lose  the  rest  of  his  hair.  A  similar  idea 

1  Kane,  216.  2  Williams,  248. 


288  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

prevails  about  teeth :  all  over  England  children  ar0 
taught  to  throw  extracted  teeth  into  the  fire,  lest  a 
dog  by  swallowing  them  should  induce  the  toothache. 
So  with  the  nail  that  has  scratched  you,  or  the  knife 
that  has  cut  you, — keep  the  nail  or  knife  free  from 
rust,  and  the  wound  will  not  fester.     But  all  such  ideas 
are  explained  by  those  actually  existent  in  savage 
parts,  by  the  custom,  for  instance,  of  the  Fijians  of 
hiding  their  cut  hair  in  the  thatch  of  the  house,  that  it 
may  not  be  used  against  them  in  witchcraft,  or  by  the 
practice  of  Zulu  sorcerers  to  destroy  their  victims  by 
burying  some  of  his  hair,  his  nails,  or  his  dress  in  a 
secret  place,  that  the  decay  of  the  one  may  ensure  that 
of  the  other.     And  a  similar  philosophy  lies  at  the 
root  of  most  popular  charms  for  certain  complaints. 
The  remedies  for  warts,  for  instance,  are  all  vicarious. 
Both  at  home  and  abroad  the  most  usual  method  is 
to  rub  a  black  snail  on  the  wart,  and  then  to  hang  it 
on  a  hedge,  trusting  to  the  sympathetic  decay  of  the 
wart  and  snail.     But  a  piece  of  stolen  raw  meat,  a 
stalk  of  wheat  or  a  hair  with  as  many  knots  in  them 
as  there  are  warts  on  the  hand,  or  two  apple  halves 
tied  together,  will,  if  applied  to  the  part  and  then 
buried,  cause  effectual  relief.     The  essential  thing  is  to 
ensure  the  decay  of  the  representative  object.     In 
Somersetshire  a  good  ague  cure  is  to  shut  up  a  large 
black  spider  in  a  box  and  leave  it  to  perish,  that  spider 
and  ague  may  disappear  together.     In  many  places, 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  289 

it  is  thought  that  the  whooping-cough  may  be  trans- 
ferred to  a  hairy  caterpillar  tied  in  a  bag  round  the 
neck  :  as  the  insect  dies  the  cough  will  go.  And  in 
Devonshire  some  of  the  patient's  hair  is  given  to  a 
dog  between  two  slices  of  buttered  bread,  that  the  dog 
may  take  the  hair  and  the  cough  together  ;  whilst  in 
Sunderland  the  head  is  shaved  and  the  hair  (risking 
we  must  suppose  a  headache)  left  on  a  bush  for  the 
birds  to  carry  off,  that  the  cough  itself  may  pass  to 
them.  May  it  not  be  said  that  such  customs  and 
fancies  betray  a  mental  constitution  radically  different 
from  our  present  one,  taking  us  back  and  ever  remind- 
ing us  of  the  savagery  of  our  lineage  as  surely  as  do 
flint-flakes  or  bone-needles,  and  teaching  us  that  only 
by  the  slowest  degrees  can  emancipation  be  achieved 
from  the  superstitions,  or,  as  some  think,  from  the 
poetry,  of  ignorance  ? 

Again,  trees,  stones,  waters,  stars,  serpents,  or 
animals,  are  all  to  this  day  worshipped  far  and  wide 
by  uncivilised  races,  and  the  marks  of  a  similar  object- 
worship  by  our  own  race  still  survive  in  many  a 
popular  tradition.  A  law  of  Canute  earnestly  for- 
bade the  heathenship  of  reverencing  '  the  sun  or  moon, 
fire  or  flood,  waterwhylls,  or  stones,  or  trees  of  the 
wood  of  any  sort ; '  yet,  if  such  things  are  no  longer 
worshipped,  it  may  be  certainly  said  that  some  of  them 
are  still  reverenced.  To  take,  for  instance,  tree-wor- 
ship. Both  in  Guiana  and  Africa  the  natives  have  so 

u 


290  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

superstitious  a  reverence  for  the  silk  cotton  tree  that 
they  fear  to  cut  it  down  lest  death  should  ensue.1  In 
New  Zealand  mythology,  Rata  was  rebuked  and  put 
to  shame  by  the  spirits  of  the  forest  for  cutting  down 
a  tall  tree-divinity  for  making  his  canoe.2  The  trees 
which  occupy  the  most  prominent  place  in  European 
folk-lore  are  the  elder,  the  thorn,  and  the  rowan  or 
mountain  ash.  In  Denmark  a  twig  of  elder  placed 
silently  in  the  ground  is  a  popular  cure  for  tooth-ache 
or  ague,  whilst  no  furniture,  least  of  all  a  cradle,  may 
be  made  of  its  wood  ;  for  the  tree  is  protected  by  the 
Elder-mother,  without  whose  consent  not  a  leaf  may 
be  touched,  and  who  would  strangle  the  baby  as  it  lay 
asleep.  So  also  about  Chemnitz,  elder  boughs  fixed 
before  stalls  keep  witchcraft  from  the  cattle  ;  and 
wreaths  of  it  hung  up  in  houses  on  Good  Friday,  after 
sunset,  are  believed  to  confer  immunity  from  the 
ravages  of  caterpillars.  In  Suffolk,  it  is  the  safest  tree 
to  stand  under  in  a  thunderstorm,  and  misfortune  will 
ensue  if  ever  it  is  burned.  The  legend  that  the  cross 
was  made  of  its  wood  is  evidently  an  aftergrowth,  an 
attempt,  of  which  we  have  so  many  examples,  to  give  a 
Christian  colour  to  a  heathen  practice  ;  for  the  elder 
was  the  tree  under  which,  in  pre-Christian  times,  the 
old  Prussian  Earth-god  was  fabled  to  dwell.  Like 
the  elder,  the  whitethorn  was  once  an  object  of  wor- 

1  Brett,  Indian  Tribes  of  Guiana,  369. 
*  Grey,  Polynesian  Mythology,  111-114. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  291 

ship,  for  it  too  is  held  to  be  scatheless  in  storms  ;  and 
how  else  can  we  account  for  the  fact  that  in  Switzer- 
land, as  in  the  Eastern  counties  of  England,  to  bring 
its  flowers  into  a  house  is  thought  to  bring  death, 
than  by  supposing  it  was  once  a  tree  too  sacred  to 
be  touched,  and  likely  to  avenge  in  some  way  the 
profanation  that  was  done  to  it  ?  Too  deeply  rooted 
in  popular  veneration  for  its  sacred  character  to  dis- 
appear, the  Church,  in  course  of  time,  wound  its  own 
legend  round  it,  and  by  the  fiction  that  its  wood  had 
composed  the  Crown  of  Thorns,  deprived  the  worship 
of  its  heathen  sting.  But  if  round  the  elder  and  the 
thorn  feelings  of  reverence  once  gathered  and  still 
linger,  yet  more  is  it  true  of  the  rowan.  In  England, 
Germany,  and  Sweden  its  leaves  are  still  the  most 
potent  instrument  against  the  darker  powers  :  High- 
landers still  insert  crosses  of  it  with  red  thread  in  the 
lining  of  their  clothes,  and  Cornish  peasants  still  carry 
some  in  their  pocket  and  wind  it  round  the  horns  of 
their  cattle  in  order  to  keep  off  evil  eyes.  In  Lanca- 
shire sprigs  of  it  are  for  the  same  reason  hung  up  at 
bedheads,  and  the  churn  staff  is  generally  made  of  its 
\vood.  It  used  to  stand  in  nearly  every  churchyard 
in  Wales,  and  crosses  of  it  were  regularly  distributed 
on  Christian  festivals  as  sure  preservatives  against 
evil  spirits.  But  this  is  another  attempt  to  Chris- 
tianise what  was  heathen,  for  the  ancient  Danes  always 
used  some  of  it  for  their  ships,  to  secure  them  against 


292  COMPARATIVE  FOLK- LORE. 

the  storms  which  Ran,  the  great  Ocean  God's  wife, 
with  her  net  for  capsized  mariners,  was  ever  ready  and 
desirous  to  raise.  The  rowan  in  heathen  mythology 
was  called  Thor's  Helper,  because  it  bent  to  his  grasp 
in  his  passage  over  a  flooded  river  on  his  way  to  the 
land  of  the  Frost  Giants  ;  and  it  has  been  thought  that 
the  later  sanctity  of  the  tree  may  be  due  to  the  place 
it  occupied  in  mythological  fancy.  Yet  it  seems  more 
reasonable  to  trace  the  myth  to  a  yet  older  supersti- 
tion than  to  trace  the  superstition  to  the  myth.  For 
from  the  exceeding  beauty  of  their  berries  the  rowan 
and  the  elder  and  the  thorn  would  naturally  impress 
the  savage  mind  with  the  feelings  of  actual  divinity, 
and  would  consequently  lend  themselves  to  the  earliest 
imaginings  about  the  universe  of  things.  It  is  more 
likely  that  they  progressed  from  a  divinity  on  earth 
to  their  position  in  mythology  than  from  their  position 
in  mythology  to  a  divinity  on  earth,  for  the  mind  is 
capable  of  employing  things  for  worship  long  before 
it  is  capable  of  employing  them  for  fable.  Worship 
is  the  product  of  fear,  and  fable  of  fancy ;  and  before 
men  can  indulge  in  fancy  they  must  to  some  extent 
have  cast  off  fear. 

Certain  traditions  relating  to  birds  and  beasts  are 
only  explicable  on  the  supposition  that  they  were  once 
objects  of  divination  or  worship.  The  old  Germans, 
\ve  know  from  Tacitus,  used  white  horses,  as  the 
Romans  used  chickens,  for  purposes  of  augury,  and 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  293 

divined  future  events  from  different  intonations  of 
neighings.  Hence  it  probably  is  that  the  discovery 
of  a  horse-shoe  is  so  universally  thought  lucky,  some 
of  the  feelings  that  once  attached  to  the  animal  still 
surviving  round  the  iron  of  its  hoof.  For  horses,  like 
dogs  or  birds,  were  invariably  accredited  with  a 
greater  insight  into  futurity  than  man  himself ;  and 
the  many  superstitions  connected  with  the  flight  or 
voice  of  birds  resolve  themselves  into  the  fancy, 
not  inconceivable  among  men  surrounded  on  all  sides 
by  unintelligible  tongues,  that  birds  were  the  bearers 
of  messages  and  warnings  to  men,  which  skill  and 
observation  might  hope  to  interpret.  Why  is  the 
robin's  life  and  nest  sacred,  and  why  does  an  injury 
to  either  bring  about  bloody  milk,  lightning,  or  rain  ? 
It  has  been  suggested  that  the  robin,  on  account  of 
its  colour,  was  once  sacred  to  Thor,  the  god  of  light- 
ning ;  but  it  is  possible  that  its  red  breast  singled  it 
out  for  worship  from  among  birds,  just  as  its  red  berries 
the  rowan  from  among  trees,  long  before  its  worship- 
pers had  arrived  at  any  ideas  of  abstract  divinities. 
All  over  the  world  there  is  a  regard  for  things  red. 
Captain  Cook  noticed  a  predilection  for  red  feathers 
throughout  all  the  islands  of  the  Pacific.1  In  the 
Highlands  women  tie  some  red  thread  round  the 
cows'  tails  before  turning  them  out  to  grass  in  spring, 
and  tie  red  silk  round  their  own  fingers  to  keep  off 
1  Cook,  vi.  192. 


294  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

the  witches  :  and  just  as  in  Esthonia,  mothers  put 
some  red  thread  in  their  babies'  cradles,  so  in  China 
they  tie  some  round  their  children's  wrists,  and  teach 
them  to  regard  red  as  the  best  known  safeguard 
against  evil  spirits. 

One,  indeed,  of  the  chief  lessons  of  Comparative 
Folk-Lore  is  a  caution  against  the  theory  which 
deduces  popular  traditions  from  Aryan  or  other  my- 
thology. The  fact  has  been  already  alluded  to,  that 
in  parts  of  China  the  same  feelings  prevail  about  the 
swallow  as  in  England  or  Germany.  But  there  are. 
yet  other  analogies  between  the  East  and  the  West. 
A  crowing  hen  is  an  object  of  universal  dislike  in 
England  and  Brittany;  and  few  families  in  China 
will  keep  a  crowing  hen.1  The  owl's  voice  is  ominous 
of  death  or  other  calamity  in  England  and  Germany, 
as  it  was  in  Greece  (except  at  Athens) ;  but  in  the 
Celestial  Empire  also  it  presages  death,  and  is  re- 
garded as  the  bird  which  calls  for  the  soul.  And  the 
crow  also  is  in  China  a  bird  of  ill  omen.  Is  it  not 
therefore  likely  that  all  popular  fancies  about  birds 
and  animals  have  begun  in  the  same  way,  among  the 
same  or  different  races  of  the  globe,  and  were  subse- 
quently adopted  but  never  originated  by  mythology  ? 
May  it  not  be  that  certain  birds  or  animals  became 
prominent  in  mythology  because  they  had  already  been 

1  Doolittle,  Social  Life  of  the  Chinese,  ii.  328. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  295 

prominent  in  superstition,  rather  than  that  they  be- 
came prominent  in  superstition  because  they  previously 
had  been  prominent  in  mythology?  For  instance, 
instead  of  tracing  a  dog's  howling  as  a  death  omen  to 
an  Aryan  belief  that  the  dog  guided  the  soul  from  its 
earthly  tenement  to  its  abode  in  heaven,  may  we  not 
suppose  that  the  myth  arose  from  an  already  existing 
omen,  and  that  the  latter  arose,  as  omens  still  do,  from 
a  coincidence  which  suggested  a  connection,  subse- 
quently sustained  by  superficial  observation  ?  The 
St.  Swithin  fallacy,  which  arose  within  historical 
memory  and  still  holds  its  ground  in  an  age  of  scien- 
tific observation,  well  illustrates  how  one  striking  coin- 
cidence may  grow  into  a  belief,  which  no  amount  of  later 
evidence  can  weaken  or  destroy.  Just  so,  if  it  happened 
that  a  dog  howled  shortly  before  some  calamity 
occurred  to  our  Aryan  forefathers,  thousands  and 
thousands  of  years  ago,  long  before  they  had  attained 
to  any  thoughts  of  soul  or  heaven,  we  can  well 
imagine  that  the  dog,  thus  thought  to  betoken  death, 
should,  when  they  came  to  frame  the  myth,  be  con- 
ceived as  the  guide  which  was  waiting  for  the  soul  to 
take  it  to  heaven,  and  that  the  belief  thus  perpetuated 
by  the  myth  might  survive  to  the  latest  ages. 

There  is  abundant  evidence  in  the  practices  to 
this  very  day,  or  till  lately,  prevalent  in  England  and 
Europe,  that  the  worship  of  the  sun  or  of  fire  fills 
a  large  part  in  primitive  religion.  The  passing  of 


296  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

children  through  the  fire  is  not  only  a  Semitic  custom, 
but  extends  wherever  the  human  mind  has  attained 
to  the  idea  of  purification  and  sacrifice.  Some  North 
American  tribes  used  to  burn  to  the  sun  a  man-offer- 
ing in  the  spring,  to  the  moon  a  woman-offering  in 
the  autumn,  expressing  thereby  their  sense  of  the 
blessings  of  light  and  a  desire  for  their  continuance. 
And  traces  of  such  fire-worship  and  of  its  accompany- 
ing human  sacrifices  lasted  in  Europe  into  the  very 
heart  of  this  century,  and  in  many  places  still  survive. 
The  similarity  that  exists  between  them,  both  in  their 
seasons  and  mode  of  observance,  illustrates  the  marvel- 
lous sameness  of  ideas  which  may  so  often  be  found 
among  people  in  widely  remote  districts  of  the  globe. 
.  The  three  great  festivals  of  the  Druids  took  place 
on  Mayday  Eve,  on  Midsummer  Eve,  and  on  All 
Hallow-e'en.  On  those  days  went  up  from  cairns, 
toothills,  and  Belenian  heights  fires  and  sacrifices  to 
the  sun-god  Beal :  and  from  such  fires  the  lord  of  the 
neighbourhood  would  take  the  entrails  of  the  sacri- 
ficed animal,  and,  walking  barefoot  over  the  ashes, 
carry  them  to  the  Druid  who  presided  over  the  cere- 
monies. These  fires  have  descended  to  us  as  the 
famous  Beltane  fires,  lit  still,  or  till  lately,  in  Ireland, 
Scotland,  Northern  England,  and  Cornwall,  on  the  eve 
of  the  summer  solstice  and  at  the  equinoxes,  usually 
on  hill  tops,  with  rejoicing  and  merriment  and  leap- 
ing through  the  flames  on  the  part  of  all  ages  and 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  297 

sexes  of  the  population.1  It  is  possible  that  this 
leaping  through  the  flames  is  a  relic  of  the  time 
when  men  fell  victims  to  them,  a  modification  of 
the  more  barbarous  custom.  In  the  Highlands,  where 
at  the  Beltane  feast  an  oatmeal  cake  is  toasted  and 
portions  of  it  drawn  for  blindfold  by  the  company  as 
they  sit  in  a  trench  round  a  grass  table,  whosoever 
is  the  drawer  of  that  portion  which  has  been  purposely 
toasted  black  is  devoted  to  Baal  to  be  sacrificed,  and 
must  leap  perforce  three  times  through  the  flames. 
In  the  same  country  it  is,  or  was.  customary  on  Yeule 
or  Christmas  Eve  to  burn  in  a  cartload  of  lighted 
peat  the  stump  of  an  old  tree,  which  went  by  the 
name  of  Callac  Nollic,  or  Christmas  Old  Wife.  And 
in  several  Continental  traditions  we  find  the  memory 

1  There  are  several  derivations  for  Beltane  or  Bealteine :  I.  From 
Baal  or  Belus,  the  Phoenician  god,  the  worship  being  supposed  to  be  of 
Phoenician  origin  ;  2.  from  Baldur,  one  of  the  gods  of  Valhalla  who  repre- 
sented the  Sun  ;  3.  from  la  =  day,  teine  =  fire,  and  Beal  =  the  name  of 
some  god,  but  not  Belus  :  4.  from  Paleteine,  Pales'  fire,  the  worship 
being  identified  with  that  of  the  Roman  goddess  Pales,  who  presided 
over  cattle  and  pastures,  and  to  whom,  on  April  21,  prayers  and  offerings 
were  made.  At  the  Palilia  shepherds  purified  their  flocks  by  sulphur 
and  fires  of  olive  and  pine  wood,  and  presented  the  goddess  with  cakes 
of  millet  and  milk,  whilst  the  people  leaped  thrice  through  straw  fires 
kindled  in  a  row.  Yet  we  should  probably  be  right  if  we  connected 
the  Palilia  and  the  Beltanes,  not  as  directly  borrowed  one  from  the 
other,  but  as  co-descendants  from  one  and  the  same  origin. 

Mr.  Forbes-Leslie  speaks  of  Beltane  fires  as  still  to  be  seen  in  1865. 
The  Beltane  feast  proper  was  on  May-day,  but  the  word  was  also  applied 
to  fires  kindled  in  honour  of  Bel  on  other  days,  as  on  Midsummer  Eve, 
All  Hallow-e'en,  and  Yeule,  now  Christmas.  (Early  Races  of  Scotland, 
i.  120- 1.) 


29S  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

of  a  sacrifice  still  adhering  to  Midsummer  Eve,  or  St. 
John  the  Baptist's  Vigil.  On  that  day,  in  Livonia, 
one  or  two  old  boats  were  burned  to  the  songs  and 
dances  of  young  and  old  ;  whilst  at  Reichenbach,  in 
the  Voightland,  a  May-pole,  planted  on  the  green, 
was,  after  similar  festivities,  thrown  into  the  water. 
On  the  same  day  many  watermen  still  refrain  from 
committing  themselves  to  the  Elbe,  the  Unstrut,  or 
the  Elster,  from  the  belief  that  upon  that  day  those 
rivers  require  a  sacrifice  ;  and  the  Saale  is  avoided 
for  the  same  reason  on  Walpurgis,  or  Mayday  Eve,  as 
well.  From  the  latter  cases  we  may  infer  that,  where 
rivers  flowed  near,  a  sacrifice  by  water  was  as  usual 
as  one  by  fire,  which  possibly  explains  the  custom  so 
common  in  many  places  in  connection  with  these 
Beltane  fires  of  rolling  something  lighted  down  a  hill, 
and,  if  possible,  into  a  river.  At  Conz,  on  the  Moselle, 
a  burning  wheel  was  rolled  down  the  hill  into  the  river, 
and  Scotch  children  at  the  Beltane  feast  used  to  roll 
their  bannocks  three  times  down  a  hill  before  consum- 
ing them  round  a  good  fire  of  heath  and  brushwood. 
So  in  Swabia,  wheels  of  lighted  straw  were  rolled  down 
the  Frauenberg,  and  on  Scheiblen-Sonntag  the  young 
people  still  go  by  night  to  a  hill,  and  after  dancing 
and  singing  round  a  fire,  swing  wooden  wheels  by 
means  of  a  stick  round  and  round  till  they  are 
thoroughly  alight,  and  then  fling  them  down  the  hill. 
In  North  Germany,  where  the  fires  take  place  at 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  299 

Easter  instead  of  at  Midsummer,  lighted  tar-barrels 
are  rolled  down  the  Osterberge.  The  Church,  to 
sanctify  these  fires,  made  the  day  of  John  the 
Baptist  coincident  with  Midsummer-day,  and  taught 
that  the  heathen  customs  were  symbolical  of  Christian 
doctrine.  The  fires  themselves  signified  the  Baptist, 
that  burning  and  shining  light  who  was  to  precede 
the  true  light ;  whilst  the  rolling  wheels,  as  they  re- 
presented the  gradual  descent  of  the  sun  in  heaven 
after  it  had  reached  the  highest  point,  so  they  illus- 
trated the  diminution  of  the  fame  of  John,  who  was 
at  first  thought  to  be  the  real  Messiah,  till  on  his  own 
testimony  he  said,  '  He  must  increase,  but  I  must 
decrease.'  It  has  even  been  attempted  in  recent 
times  to  show  that  the  Midsummer  fires,  in  spite  of 
all  their  heathen  surroundings,  were  really  of  Christian 
origin,  and  in  some  way  connected  with  John  the 
Baptist.  The  two  chief  objections  to  this  theory  are, 
the  survival  of  heathen  names  for  the  fires,  as  for 
instance,  among  others,  the  name  Himmelsfeuer,  and 
not  the  usual  Johannisfeuer,  in  one  of  the  districts  of 
Upper  Swabia,  and  also  the  close  analogy,  both  in 
the  idea  and  mode  of  purification,  which  exists 
between  the  Midsummer  fire  for  men  and  the  Need- 
fires  for  cattle. 

Needfires  were  fires  through  which  cattle  were 
driven  if  any  disease  broke  out  amongst  them.  Such 
a  fire  was  lit  in  Mull  in  1767,  and  was  not  only  the 


300  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

method  lately  employed  in  Lower  Saxony,  but  is  said 
to  be  still  actually  prevalent  in  Caithness.  It  would 
thus  appear  that  after  the  sacrifice  to  fire  had  been 
modified  into  the  custom  of  passing  through  or  over 
it,  the  newer  mode  of  cure  gradually  found  its  explana- 
tion in  the  idea,  that  fire  was  a  healing  or  purifying 
agent  on  account  of  its  power  to  drive  away  those  evil 
spirits,  which  in  savage  estimation  cause  or  constitute 
natural  disease.  The  essential  thing  was  that  all  fires 
in  the  neighbourhood  should  be  first  extinguished  and 
new  ones  relit  by  means  of  friction  for  the  cattle  to  go 
through.  The  virtue  lay  in  the  new  virgin  fire  uncon- 
taminated  by  previous  use  for  any  purpose  whatsoever ; 
and  the  Forlorn  Fires,  which  are  said  to  be  still  lighted 
in  Scotland  when  any  man  thinks  himself  the  victim 
of  witchcraft,1  agree  closely  in  ceremonial  with  the 
Needfires  for  cattle.  A  notice  having  been  given  to 
all  the  householders  within  the  two  nearest  streams 
to  extinguish  all  lights  and  fires  on  a  given  morning, 
the  sufferer  and  his  friends  on  the  day  cause  the 
emission  of  new  fire  by  a  spinning-wheel  or  other 
means  of  friction,  and  having  spread  it  from  some 
tow  to  a  candle,  thence  to  a  torch,  and  from  the 
torch  to  a  peatload,  send  it  by  messengers  to  the 
expectant  houses.  But  exactly  similar  purificatory 
effects  were  attributed  to  the  Midsummer  fires.  As 
far  as  their  light  reached,  crops  enjoyed  immunity  from 

1  Stewart,  Popular  Superstitions  of  the  Highlanders,  p.  149. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  301 

sorcery  for  a  year,  and  the  ashes  collected  from  them 
were  a  constant  insurance  against  calamities  of  all 
sorts.  Leaping  through  them  was  held  to  avert 
malignant  spirits  for  a  year,  and  in  many  places  not 
only  did  men  leap,  but  cattle  were  driven,  through 
the  flames.  Both  America  and  Africa  supply 
curious  analogues  to  the  Needfires  of  Scotland.  In 
the  former  the  Mayas  at  a  festivity  in  honour  of  their 
gods  of  agriculture  danced  about  the  ashes  of  a  burnt 
pile  of  wood,  and  passed  barefooted  over  the  coals 
with  or  without  injury,  believing  that  thus  they  would 
avert  misfortune  and  appease  the  anger  of  the  gods.1 
And  among  the  Hottentots  Kolbe  attests  the  custom 
of  driving  sheep  through  a  fire,  and  though  the 
reason  told  to  him  for  it  was,  the  warding  off  the 
attacks  of  wild  dogs  by  the  smell  of  smoke,  the  other 
ceremonies  usual  on  the  occasion  suggest  the  interpre- 
tation applicable  to  the  Scotch  custom.2  Purification 
by  passing  between  two  fires  was  also  a  custom  of 
the  Tartars.3 

Hence  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  Mid- 
summer fires  were  simply  annual  and  public  Need- 
fires,  resembling  the  yearly  harvest  feasts  of  the 
Creeks  of  North  America,  among  whom,  as  among 


1  Bancroft,  iii.  701. 

2  Kolbe,  Caput  bonce  Spei,  ii.  431-2,  and  Thunberg,  in  Pinkerlon, 
xvi.  143.     Kolbe  gives  a  picture  of  the  practice. 

1  Kerr,  Voyages,  i.  131. 


302  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

the  ancients  who  annually  imported  fresh  fire  from 
Delos  to  Lemnos,  there  was  an  idea  of  a  new  and 
purified  life  commencing  with  a  new  and  pure  flame, 
after  all  fires,  debased  by  their  subservience  to  human 
needs,  had  been  first  extinguished.  The  Minnetarees 
at  their  feast  of  the  new  corn  made  a  new  fire  by 
drilling  the  end  of  a  stick  into  a  piece  of  hard  wood  j1 
and  the  Sioux  at  their  sacred  feasts  were  wont  to 
remove  all  fire  from  the  lodge  and  rekindle  a  fresh 
fire  before  cooking  the  food,  in  order  to  have  nothing 
unclean  at  the  feast.2  In  India  the  Nagas,  when 
they  clear  a  fresh  piece  of  jungle,  first  put  out  their 
old  fires,  and  produce  a  new  fire  by  friction,  that  of 
ordinary  domestic  use  not  being  considered  pure 
enough  for  the  purpose.3 

The  same  idea  has  been  found  among  the  Indian 
tribes  of  South  America.  There  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  high-priests  '  to  guard  the  Eternal  Fire  in  the 
Rotunda ;  and,  in  the  solemn,  annual  festival  of  the 
Busque,  when  all  the  fires  of  the  nation  were  extin- 
guished, the  high-priest  alone  was  commissioned,  in 
the  temple,  to  reproduce  the  celestial  spark  and  give 
new  fire  to  the  community.' 4  So  that  from  this  most 
remarkable  identity  of  conception  between  our  fore- 

1  Catlin,  ii.  189. 

2  Schoolcraft,  Indian  Tribes,  iii.  228. 
*  Latham,  Desc.  Ethn.,  \.  141. 

4  Jones,  Antiquities  of  the  Southern  Indians,  p.  21,  and  Schoolcraft, 
I.  T.,  v.  267. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  303 

fathers  and  the  native  tribes  of  America,  it  is 
evident  there  is  nothing  exclusively  Indo-Germanic  in 
the  holiness  ascribed  to  virgin-fire,  and  that  there  is 
no  need  to  ascribe  to  Phoenician  influence  customs 
which  occur  where  such  influence  is  at  most  uncertain. 
The  wheel  ignited  by  friction  of  its  axle  was,  it  has 
been  suggested,  an  emblem  of  the  sun,  and  the  old 
Aryan  belief,  that  when  the  sun  was  hidden  by  clouds 
its  light  was  extinguished  and  needed  renewing, 
which  could  only  take  place  by  some  god  working  a 
'  pramantha '  in  its  cold  wheel  till  it  glowed  again, 
has  been  referred  to  as  the  possible  root  of  the  custom. 
But  such  an  origin  being  of  difficult  application  outside 
the  geographical  limits  of  Aryanism,  it  is  obviously 
better  to  refer  the  myth  to  the  custom  than  the  custom 
to  the  myth,  and  to  a  custom  moreover  which  is  as 
wide  as  the  world. 

It  may  here  be  noticed  in  connection  with  the 
sacrificial  customs  which  were  once  a  part  of  the 
heathen  worship,  that  the  idea  of  a  sacrifice  to 
appease  an  angry  spirit  that  has  caused  a  disease  is 
still  far  from  extinct.  The  burial  of  a  live  animal  is 
still  believed  in  Warend  and  North  Sweden  to 
prevent  the  cattle-plague,  and  an  instance  of  such  a 
sacrifice  to  the  earth  spirits  is  said  to  have  occurred 
in  Jonkoping  so  recently  as  1843.  In  Moray  not 
long  ago,  whenever  a  herd  of  cattle  was  seized  with 
the  murrain,  one  of  them  was  buried  alive,  just  as  in 


3o4  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

the  North-west  Highlands  and  in  Cornwall  a  black 
cock  is  buried  alive  on  the  spot  where  a  person  is 
first  attacked  by  epilepsy  ;  or  as,  in  Algeria,  one  is 
drowned  in  a  sacred  well  for  a  similar  purpose.  A 
case  is  even  cited  in  this  century  of  an  Englishman 
who  burned  a  live  calf  to  counteract  the  attacks  of 
evil  spirits.1  Near  Speier  in  Germany,  if  many  hens 
or  pigs  or  ducks  died  in  quick  succession,  one  of 
their  kind  was  thrown  into  the  fire,  and  the  Esthonians, 
if  a  fire  broke  out,  were  wont  to  throw  in  a  black 
living  fowl  to  appease  the  flames. 

English  country  boys,  when  on  the  sight  of  a  new 
moon  they  turn  the  money  in  their  pockets  to  ensure 
a  constant  supply  there,  have  no  idea  of  the  reason 
that  once  underlay  the  practice.  But  a  wide  compari- 
son of  customs  supplies  us  with  a  key  ;  for  we  find 
everywhere  a  prevalent  mental  association  between 
the  increase  or  wane  of  the  moon  and  the  increase  or 
wane  of  things  on  earth.  Maladies,  it  is  thought,  will 
wane  more  readily  if  the  medicine  be  taken  in  the 
moon's  wane,  and  wood  cut  at  that  time  will  burn 
better,  just  as,  on  the  other  hand,  crops  are  more 
likely  to  be  plentiful  if  sown  whilst  the  moon  is 
young,  and  marriages  more  likely  to  be  happy.  In 
some  English  counties  pigs  must  be  killed  at  the 
same  season,  lest  the  pork  should  waste  in  boiling. 
In  Germany  it  is  the  best  time  for  the  father  of  a 

1  Lancashire  Folk-Lore,  p.  63. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  305 

family  to  die,  for  in  the  latter  half  of  the  month 
his  death  would  portend  the  decrease  of  his  whole 
family  ;  it  is  also  the  best  time  for  counting  money 
which  it  is  desired  may  increase.  An  invalid  in  face 
of  a  waning  moon  should  pray  that  his  pains  may 
diminish  with  it.  Hence,  too,  the  French  idea  that 
hair  cut  in  the  moon's  wane  will  never  grow  again,  or 
the  similar  one  in  Devonshire  and  Iceland,  that  the 
rest  will  fall  off;  and  hence  probably  the  popular 
English  belief  that  the  weather  of  the  new  moon  fore- 
shadows the  weather  for  the  month.  But  are  all 
these  fancies  relics  of  an  old  moon-worship,  of  the 
existence  of  which  we  have  other  evidence,  or  simply 
expressions  of  that  feeling,  once  so  prevalent,  that 
there  existed  an  intimate  sympathy  between  man 
and  nature,  and  that  everything  which  affected  the 
former  was  in  some  way  or  another  typified  by  the 
latter?  Analogy  seems  to  favour  the  latter  hypo- 
thesis. For  instance,  all  along  the  East  coast  of 
England  it  is  thought  that  most  deaths  occur  at  the 
fall  of  the  tide,  a  sympathy  being  imagined  between 
the  ebbing  of  the  water  and  the  ebbing  of  life  ;  and 
it  is  curious  that  Aristotle  and  Pliny  entertained  a 
similar  idea,  the  former  with  respect  to  all  animals, 
the  latter  only  about  man ;  and  though  Pliny's 
observation  of  the  fact  was  instigated  by  the  state- 
ment of  his  predecessor,  it  is  likely  that  the  latter 
was  led  to  the  inquiry  by  the  notoriety  of  a  popular 

x 


306  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

belief.  The  Cornish  idea  that  deaths  are  delayed  till 
the  ebb-tide,  or  the  Icelandic  one  that  more  blood 
flows  from  sheep  killed  while  the  sea  is  running  out, 
or  that  chimneys  smoke  more  if  built  when  the  sea  is 
running  in,  may  be  cited  as  similar  instances.  The 
inhabitants  of  Esthonia,  if  a  wolf  runs  away  with  a 
lamb,  think,  by  a  kind  of  sympathy,  to  cause  the 
wolf  to  drop  it  by  themselves  dropping  something  out 
of  their  pockets.  And  in  parts  of  England  to  this 
day,  the  bloodstone  is  a  remedy  for  a  bleeding  nose, 
and  nettle-tea  for  a  nettle-rash  ;  just  as  turmeric  was 
once  accounted  a  cure  for  the  jaundice  on  account  of 
its  yellow  colour,  and  the  lungs  of  a  fox  were  held 
good  for  asthma  on  account  of  that  animal's  respi- 
ratory powers. 

Water-worship,  whether  as  river,  lake,  or  spring, 
seems  as  widely  spread  as  that  of  trees  or  other 
natural  objects,  and  the  numerous  traditions  con- 
nected with  it  form  yet  another  link  between  our 
civilised  present  and  our  barbarous  past.  '  There  is 
scarcely,'  says  a  writer  on  Lancashire  Folk- Lore,  '  a 
stream  of  any  magnitude  in  either  Lancashire  or 
Yorkshire,  which  does  not  possess  a  presiding  spirit  in 
some  part  of  its  course.'  A  water-spirit  that  haunts 
some  stepping-stones  near  Clitheroe  is  still  believed 
once  in  every  seven  years  to  require  a  human  life ; 
nor  is  it  long  since  a  farmer  in  Anglesea  had  to  drain 
a  well  belonging  to  him,  on  account  of  the  damage 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  307 

done  by  persons  resorting  thither,  under  the  belief 
that  if  they  cursed  the  disease  they  suffered  from  and 
dropped  pins  about  the  well,  they  would  shortly  be 
cured.  There  is  still  a  pin-well  in  Northumberland, 
and  another  in  Westmoreland,  wherein  country  girls 
in  passing  throw  an  offering  of  pins  to  the  resident 
spirits.  So  in  Ireland,  votive  rags  may  be  seen  on 
trees  and  hedges  that  surround  sacred  wells,  whither 
people  travel  great  distances  in  order  to  crawl  an 
uneven  number  of  times  in  the  sun's  direction  round 
the  water,  hoping  thereby  to  propitiate  the  fairies  and 
to  avert  sorceries.1  St.  Gowen's  well  on  the  coast  of 
Pembroke  was  lately  or  is  still  frequented  for  the 
cure  of  paralysis  and  other  maladies,  and  there  are 
few  counties  in  England  where  the  dedication  of  cu- 
rative wells  to  Christian  saints  does  not  betray  the 
attempt  to  hallow  and  hide  a  heathen  practice  under 
a  Christian  name.  In  Northampton  alone  we  find 
St.  Lawrence's  at  Peterborough,  St.  John's  at 
Boughton,  St.  Rumbald's  at  Brackley,  St.  Loy's  at 
Weedon-Loys,  St.  Dennis'  at  Naseby,  St.  Mary's  at 
Hardwick,  and  St.  Thomas'  at  Northampton.  So  in 
Normandy,  people  still  resort  from  all  parts  of  the 
province,  on  the  eve  of  the  first  of  June,  to  the  foun- 

1  Sir  W.  Betham,  Gael  and  Cimbri  :  1834.  '  The  branches  of  a. 
tree  near  the  Stone  of  Fire  Temple  in  the  Persian  province  of  Fars 
were  found  thickly  hung  with  rags,  and  the  same  offerings  are  common 
on  bushes  round  sacred  wells  in  the  Dekkan  of  India  and  Ceylop. ' 
(Forbes-Leslie,  Early  Races  of  Scotland,  i.  163.) 

X   2 


308  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

tain  of  St.  Clotilda,  near  Andelys,  and  there  are  other 
French  wells  of  no  inferior  celebrity.  As  English 
peasants  propitiate  bad  water-spirits  by  presents  of 
pins,  so  do  the  Bretons  by  slices  of  bread  and  butter  ; 
and  the  Livonians,  before  starting  on  a  voyage,  calm 
the  sea- mother  by  a  libation  of  brandy.1  But  water, 
in  addition  to  its  dangerous  and  curative  properties, 
is  supposed  to  contain  prophetic  ones  as  well.  The 
Castalian  fountain  in  Greece  was  prophetic  ;  and  as 
the  Laconians,  by  cakes  thrown  into  a  pool  sacred 
to  Juno,  used  to  augur  good  or  bad  to  themselves 
according  as  their  cakes  sank  or  floated,  so  do  our 
Cornish  countrymen  by  dropping  pins  or  pebbles 
into  wells  read  futurity  in  the  signs  of  the  bubbles. 

The  belief  in  unseen  spirits,  which  underlies  many 
of  the  foregoing  superstitions,  as  it  is  one  of  the 
earliest  beliefs  of  the  human  mind,  so  it  is  one  of  the 
most  persistent.  The  worship  of  water,  fire,  and  other 
natural  objects  probably  arose  from  a  dread  of  spirits 
thought  to  be  resident  within  them,  whom  it  was  as 
well  to  cajole  by  gifts  and  prayers.  Earth  and  air, 
like  fire  and  water,  were  peopled  respectively  with 
invisible  demons,  which  survive  in  still  current  tra- 
ditions of  the  Gabriel  Hounds,  the  Seven  Whistlers, 
fairies,  elves,  and  all  their  tribe.  Our  countrymen  in 
Cornwall,  if  the  breeze  fail  while  they  are  winnowing, 

1  Schiefner,  Introduction  to  Sjogren't   Livische    Grammatik.      St. 
Petersburg,  1861. 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  309 

whistle  to  the  Spriggian,  or  air-spirits,  to  bring  it 
back  ;  and  the  Esthonians  on  the  Gulf  of  Finland  do, 
or  did,  precisely  the  same.  In  Northamptonshire,  till 
lately,  women  used  to  sweep  the  hearth  before  they 
went  to  bed,  and  leave  vessels  of  water  for  the  ablu- 
tions of  the  fairies  or  spirits  of  the  earth,  just  as  in 
Siberia  food  is  placed  daily  in  the  cellar  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Domavoi  or  house-spirits.  In  Scotland 
green  patches  may  still  be  seen  on  field  or  moor  left 
uncultivated  as  '  the  gudeman's  croft,'  by  which  it  has 
been  hoped  to  buy  the  goodwill  of  the  otherwise  evil- 
disposed  Devil  or  earth-spirit ;  and  it  is  doubtless  from 
a  similar  fear  of  showing  neglect  or  disrespect  that 
Esthonian  peasants  dislike  parting  with  any  earth 
from  their  fields,  and  in  drinking  beer  or  eating  bread 
recognise  the  existence  and  wants  of  the  earth-spirit 
by  letting  some  drops  of  the  one  and  some  crumbs  of 
the  other  find  their  way  to  the  floor.1 

The  foregoing  instances  of  actual  Folk-Lore,  many 
of  them  now  mere  meaningless  survivals,  seem  only 
intelligible  on  the  ground  that  they  have  descended 
to  us  either  from  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Western 
Europe,  or  from  times  when  our  Aryan  progenitors 
were  perhaps  not  unlike  modern  Fuejians.  The 

1  The  instances  of  Esthonian  superstitions  are  taken  from  Grimm's 
collection  in  the  Deutsche  Mythologie.  Their  date  is  1 788.  The  same 
interest  attaches  to  them  from  an  archaeological  point  of  view,  whether 
they  exist  still  or  have  become  extinct. 


3io  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

existence  has  been  proved,  not  only  in  England  but 
throughout  Europe,  of  phases  of  thought  and  modes 
of  worship  closely  similar  to  those  still  found  among 
actual  savages.  There  is  no  nation  that  we  know  in 
the  present  or  read  of  in  the  past  so  cultivated  as  not 
to  retain  many  spots  from  the  dark  ages  of  its  infancy 
and  ignorance  ;  but  these,  absurd  as  they  may  seem, 
hold  the  rank  and  claim  the  interest  of  prehistoric 
antiquities.  The  fact  that  there  still  survive  among 
civilised  people  ideas  and  practices,  corresponding  in 
structure  to  those  found  in  the  various  stages  of  the 
lower  races,  is  of  the  same  force  to  prove  that  we  once 
went  through  those  several  stages,  as  the  survival  of 
traits  in  the  growth  of  the  individual,  similar  to  those 
actually  found  in  lower  animals,  point  to  our  gradual 
ascent  from  a  lower  scale  of  being.  The  belief  in, 
and  dread  of,  evil  spirits  ;  the  endeavour  to  affect 
them  by  acting  on  their  fetishes  or  substitutes ;  the 
worship  of  natural  objects,  as  trees,  animals,  water  or 
even  stones  ;  the  mistaking  of  mere  sequence  in  time 
for  causal  connection  and  the  consequent  importance 
attached  to  such  occurrences  as  have  been  observed 
to  precede  remarkable  phenomena, — these  and  many 
other  characteristics  of  modern  savages  find  abundant 
representation  in  modern  civilisation,  and  it  is  more 
likely  they  are  there  as  survivals  than  as  importa- 
tions. 

But  it  may  be  urged  that  no  necessary  antiquity 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  311 

can  be  asserted  of  traditions  simply  on  account  of  the 
wide  area  they  range  over,  and  instances  may  be  cited 
of  Christian  superstitions  no  less  widely  extended 
than  many  above  mentioned.  The  belief,  for  instance, 
that  about  midnight  on  Christmas  Eve,  cattle  rise  on 
their  knees  to  salute  the  Nativity,  is  found  with  slight 
modifications  in  England,  Brittany,  the  Netherlands, 
and  Denmark.  In  Cornwall  a  strong  prejudice  exists 
against  burying  on  the  north  side  of  a  church,  and 
precisely  the  same  feeling  is  found  in  Esthonia,  for 
the  reason  there  given  that  at  the  end  of  the  world 
all  churches  will  fall  on  that  side.  So,  too,  the  cus- 
tom of  opening  all  doors  and  windows  at  a  death,  to 
give  free  outlet  to  the  departing  soul,  prevails  no  less 
in  the  south  of  Spain  than  in  England  or  in  parts  of 
Germany. 

To  this  objection  there  are  two  answers  :  first,  that 
the  capacity  of  superstitions  to  spread  widely  and 
rapidly  is  by  no  means  denied ;  secondly,  that  many 
Christian  traditions  are  really  heathen,  though  their 
origin  and  meaning  may  now  be  lost.  For  the  policy 
of  the  Church  towards  paganism,  though  at  times  one 
of  radical  opposition,  was  generally  one  better  calcu- 
lated for  success.  It  learned  to  prefer  gradual  triumphs 
to  speedy  conquests,  aware  that  the  former  were  more 
likely  to  last,  and  was  pleased  to  satisfy  its  conscience 
and  hide  its  impotence  under  connivance  and  compro- 
mise. It  assimilated  beliefs  which  it  could  not  destroy, 


312  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

and  glossed  over  what  it  could  not  erase,  substituting 
simply  its  saints  and  angels  for  the  gods  and  spirits 
of  older  cults.  On  Monte  Casino,  near  Rome,  there 
existed  down  to  the  sixth  century  a  temple  sacred  to 
Apollo,  till  St.  Benedict  came  and,  like  another  Josiah, 
broke  the  idols  and  overthrew  the  altar  and  burned 
the  grove,  but  set  up  a  temple  to  St.  Martin  in  its 
stead.  And  this  case  is  typical  of  the  way  in  which 
obstinate  heathen  rites  were  diverted  and  customs 
consecrated.  Some  illustrations  may  be  added  to 
those  already  incidentally  alluded  to,  since  they  serve 
to  explain  how  so  many  relics  of  heathenism  have  re- 
sisted centuries  of  Christian  teaching.  The  Scandi- 
navian water-spirit,  Nikur,  inhabitant  of  lakes  and 
rivers  and  raiser  of  storms,  whose  favour  could  only 
be  won  by  sacrifices,  became  in  the  middle  ages  St. 
Nicholas,  the  patron  of  sailors  and  sole  refuge  in  dan- 
ger ;  and  near  St.  Nicholas'  church  at  Liverpool  there 
stood  a  statue  of  the  Christian  saint,  to  whom  sailors 
used  to  present  a  peace-offering  when  they  went  to 
sea,  and  a  wave-offering  when  they  returned.  So  it 
was  with  sacred  trees  and  flowers  and  waters.  Their 
sanctity  was  transferred,  not  destroyed.  St.  Boniface, 
with  the  wood  of  the  oak  he  so  miraculously  felled, 
raised  an  oratory  to  St.  Peter,  to  whom  were  thence- 
forth paid  the  honours  of  Thor.  Nobody  ventured 
the  more  to  touch  the  famous  oak  at  Kenmare  when 
blown  down  by  a  storm,  because  it  had  been  handed 


COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE.  313 

Sver  to  the  protection  of  St.  Columba,  nor  did  a  frag- 
ment of  St.  Colman's  oak  held  in  the  mouth  the  less 
avert  death  by  hanging  because  it  had  been  sanctified 
by  the  name  of  a  saint.  The  Breton  princes,  before 
they  entered  the  church  at  Vretou,  offered  prayers 
under  a  yew  outside,  which  was  said  to  have  sprung 
from  St.  Martin's  staff  and  to  have  been  so  replete 
with  holiness  that  the  very  birds  of  the  air  left  its 
berries  untouched.  The  great  goddess  Freja  could 
only  be  banished  from  men's  thoughts  by  transferring 
what  had  been  sacred  to  her  to  the  Virgin  Mary  ;  and 
the  names  of  such  common  plants  as  Lady's  Grass, 
Lady's  Smock,  Lady's  Slipper,  Lady's  Mantle,  and 
others,  attest  to  this  day  the  wrong  that  was  done  to 
the  Northern  goddess.  Bits  of  seaweed  called  Lady's 
Trees  still  decorate  many  a  Cornish  chimney-piece, 
and  protect  the  house  from  fire  and  other  evils.  The 
Ladybird  was  once  Freja's  bird  ;  and  Orion's  belt, 
which  in  Sweden  is  still  called  Freja's  spindle,  in 
Zealand  now  belongs  to  her  successor  Mary.  In  the 
same  way  Christmas  has  supplanted  the  old  Yule 
festival,  and  the  Yule  log  still  testifies  to  the  rites  of 
fire-worship  once  connected  with  the  season.  So  we 
now  keep  Easter  at  the  time  when  our  pagan  fore- 
fathers used  to  sacrifice  to  the  goddess  Eostre,  and 
hot  cross-buns  are  perhaps  the  descendants  of  cakes 
once  eaten  in  her  honour,  on  which  the  mark  of 
Christianity  has  taken  the  place  of  some  heathen  sign. 


314  COMPARATIVE  FOLK-LORE. 

Such  then  is  the  evidence  which  Comparative 
Folk-Lore  affords  in  confirmation  of  the  teaching  of 
history,  that  the  people  from  whom  we  inherit  our 
popular  traditions  were  once  as  miserable  and  savage 
as  those  we  now  place  in  the  lowest  scale  of  the 
human  family.  The  evidence  that  the  nations  now 
highest  in  culture  were  once  in  the  position  of  those 
now  the  lowest  is  ever  increasing,  and  the  study  of 
Folk-Lore  corroborates  the  conclusions  long  since 
arrived  at  by  archaeological  science.  For,  just  as 
stone  monuments,  flint  knives,  lake-piles,  or  shell- 
mounds  point  to  a  time  when  Europeans  resembled 
races  .where  such  things  are  still  part  of  actual  life, 
so  do  the  traces  in  our  social  organism  of  fetishism, 
totemism,  and  other  low  forms  of  thought,  connect 
our  past  with  people  where  such  forms  of  thought  are 
still  predominant.  The  analogies  with  barbarism 
which  still  flourish  in  civilised  communities  seem  only 
explicable  on  the  theory  of  a  slow  and  more  or  less 
uniform  metamorphosis  to  higher  types  and  modes 
of  life,  whilst  they  enforce  the  belief  that  before  long 
it  will  appear  a  law  of  development,  as  firmly  estab- 
lished on  the  inconceivability  of  the  contrary,  that 
civilisation  should  emerge  from  barbarism,  as  that 
butterflies  should  first  be  caterpillars,  or  that  igno- 
rance should  precede  knowledge.  In  this  way  super- 
stition itself  turns  to  the  service  of  science,  con- 
firming its  teaching,  that  the  history  of  humanity 


COMPARATIVE    FOLK-LORE.  315 

has  been  a  rise,  not  a  fall,  not  a  degradation  from 
completeness  to  imperfection,  but  a  constantly  accele- 
rating progress  from  savagery  to  culture ;  that,  in 
short,  the  iron  age  of  the  world  belongs  to  the  past, 
its  golden  one  to  the  future. 


THE  END. 


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